Republican secretary of state nominee Max Engling’s campaign says it returned a $60,000 contribution from a dark money group on July 14, after an internal review found the donor’s “entity type was unclear.”
The next morning, Engling signed a quarterly campaign finance report that classified the same donor as something other than a corporation. Nine days later, neither that report nor an earlier one disclosing the contribution has been amended.
The money, received June 30 from Hoosier Leadership for America, is the subject of a complaint filed Friday with the Indiana Election Commission by Knox County Clerk David Shelton, who finished second to Engling at the June 20 Republican state convention. Indiana law limits corporations to $5,000 a year in contributions to candidates for state office.
Hoosier Leadership for America Inc. has been registered with the Indiana Secretary of State as a domestic nonprofit corporation since July 2024. Its articles of incorporation, its IRS record and its own website identify it as a 501(c)(4) organization.
Committees itemize contributions on separate schedules according to who gave the money. Engling’s committee, Max for Indiana, reported the $60,000 on Schedule A-5, “contributions by other organizations.”
The same report contains a Schedule A-2, “contributions by corporations.” It has one entry — $2,000 from a Fort Wayne auto dealership, received June 30, the same day as the Hoosier Leadership contribution. A separate schedule reports a contribution from a political action committee.
“We solved this internally already during our standard internal review, and refunded on 7/14,” campaign spokeswoman Chloe Anagnos said. “During our review, we determined its entity type was unclear and thus refunded out of an abundance of caution.”
Anagnos said the contribution arrived by wire and could not be stopped, that the refund will appear on the committee’s October report, and that the campaign will “independently verify its entity type and make an amendment if necessary.” She said all of it preceded Shelton’s complaint.
The campaign did not say who conducted the review, when it began, or why the July 15 report repeated a classification that the refund the previous day had called into question. Engling serves as his own campaign treasurer and certified both that report and a July 1 large-contribution report as true, correct and complete.
Indiana’s corporate records identified no one running Hoosier Leadership for America until July 6, when the organization filed a business entity report naming Andy Surabian, a national Republican strategist and longtime adviser to U.S. Sen. Jim Banks, as its president. Earlier filings listed no principal officer. That report came six days after the contribution and five days after Engling first disclosed it.
Engling was the central Indiana regional director in Banks’ Senate office when he entered the race in May with Banks’ endorsement. He appeared as a featured guest at a Hoosier Leadership for America reception for convention delegates on June 19, eleven days before the contribution.
The ad-tracking firm AdImpact reported that the group spent $5.2 million on broadcast advertising during this year’s primary campaign against Republican state senators who opposed President Donald Trump’s redistricting demands, according to the Indiana Capital Chronicle.
The $60,000 accounted for nearly 30 percent of the $202,745 Engling’s campaign reported raising during the quarter. His June 30 cash-on-hand figure of $150,121 included money the campaign says it gave back two weeks later.
The Election Commission has two Republican and two Democratic members. No hearing has been scheduled. Early voting begins Oct. 6.
