Billionaire Ron DeSantis donors Liz and Dick Uihlein will back Donald Trump

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Billionaire Republican donors Liz Uihlein and her husband Dick Uihlein will help bankroll Donald Trump’s re-election campaign, providing a much-needed boost to the former president as he tries to blunt Joe Biden’s money advantage.

The Uihleins had been among the biggest donors to the campaign of Florida governor Ron DeSantis, who sought to challenge Trump for the Republican party’s presidential nomination but dropped from the race in January.

“We back Trump,” Liz Uihlein, the president of the packing supply giant Uline, told the Financial Times.

Her interview with the FT came after Trump swept 14 of the 15 states voting on Super Tuesday this week, forcing his last Republican rival, Nikki Haley, to drop out of the race.

The Uihleins are the highest-profile Republican megadonors yet to announce their return to Trump’s fold, as the former president tries to build a financial war chest to fight what is expected to be the most expensive White House battle in history.

The Uihleins each gave $1.5mn to DeSantis’s failed presidential bid. Liz Uihlein told the FT she would give a similar amount to Trump.

The billionaire couple, founders of the Uline shipping and packing company, have given more than $250mn to federal candidates and political groups since the 2016 election cycle, according to the nonprofit OpenSecrets. The couple backed Trump in the two previous elections, before joining several other megadonors in seeking an alternative candidate to support for the 2024 race.

But in her interview with the FT Liz Uihlein expressed some exasperation about her political influence in the Trump era.

“These two guys are very well-defined. I don’t understand why everybody has to give all this money,” she said, referring to Trump and Biden. “Neither of them have to spend a penny. We all know who they are. It’s…