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Lesson 13 min 20 XP

The Koch Network

How Charles and David Koch built the most influential private political network in American history and reshaped the Republican Party.

Building the Machine

Charles and David Koch, billionaire owners of Koch Industries, did not just write checks to politicians. Starting in the 1970s, they built a comprehensive political infrastructure: think tanks (the Cato Institute, the Mercatus Center), advocacy organizations (Americans for Prosperity), donor networks (the Koch seminars), and voter mobilization operations that rivaled the Republican National Committee itself.

At its peak around 2016, the Koch network spent roughly $900 million per election cycle, employed 1,600 full-time staff in 35 states, and operated a voter database covering 89% of the US population. Americans for Prosperity alone had more field offices than the Republican Party in many states. This was not traditional campaign spending; it was a parallel political party built to advance a specific ideological agenda: deregulation, lower taxes, reduced government spending, and opposition to climate regulation.