Private Prison Companies Are Pouring Money Into GOP Coffers Ahead of Midterms

This story was co-published with Truthout.

PACs and executives from three of the leading private prison companies have donated close to $1.2 million to candidates, fundraising committees, and political party committees during this year’s midterm election cycle, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) records.

A GEO Group subsidiary, GEO Reentry Services LLC, donated an additional $4.4 million to MAGA Inc., a super PAC supporting President Donald Trump.

Trump’s second term, along with the backing of a Republican-controlled House and Senate, has been a financial boon to the private prison industry. Since Trump took office again, private prison companies CoreCivic and GEO Group have received more than $1 billion in contracts with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE.) As of July, there were close to 59,000 people detained by ICE, the majority of whom are held in privately run immigration jails.

Truthout reviewed campaign contributions made by three private prison company PACs — CoreCivic, GEO Group, and Management & Training Corporation (MTC) — as well as donations made by their executives for the 2025-2026 election cycle. We examined donations made for the primary and general elections, to PACs directly controlled by the candidates, campaign fundraising committees, and donations to entities like the Republican National Committee. For executives, we only included donations over $1,000.

Truthout’s review of FEC records reveals that:

• The three private prison PACs donated about $774,000 during the midterm election cycle, including a total of $320,000 to the Republican National Committee, the National Republican Congressional Committee, and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC.)
• GEO Group’s PAC outspent CoreCivic and MTC’s PACs, with donations totaling about $456,000.
• Executives from CoreCivic and GEO Group donated a total of about $375,000 during the midterm election cycle. Truthout did not identify donations from MTC executives that fit our criteria for inclusion.
• While the overwhelming majority of private prison donations went to Republicans, there were a handful of donations to Democrats. MTC’s PAC donated $2,000 to Mississippi Democratic Congressman Bennie Thompson’s campaign, and CoreCivic’s PAC donated $5,000 to Texas Democratic Congressman Henry Cuellar’s Texas First leadership PAC. CoreCivic’s PAC donated $1,000 to the Montana Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, in addition to the $3,000 donated to the Montana Republican Legislative Campaign Committee.

Among the top recipients of private prison cash were Congressman Andrew Garbarino (R-New York) and Sen. Ashley Moody (R-Florida). Garbarino is the chair of the House Committee on Homeland Security and Moody is on the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, as noted in a recent report by Scripps News.

CoreCivic, GEO Group, and MTC’s PACs donated a total of $30,000 to Garbarino’s campaign, but the FEC records reviewed did not show any donations from CoreCivic or GEO Group executives.

GEO Group’s PACs and executives donated a total of about $48,000 to Moody’s campaign and a joint fundraising committee for her campaign and the NRSC. CoreCivic’s PAC donated $1,000 to her campaign. The super PAC Stronger Safer Nation, which supports Moody, also received a donation of $20,000 from GEO Reentry Services.

Moody is a Trump loyalist who, as Florida’s attorney general, joined Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results.

Moody is running against Democrat Angie Nixon, a current state representative, in a race that has drawn national attention. Nixon, who is a member of the Democratic Socialists of America, secured an upset primary victory in August. Sen. Bernie Sanders has joined Nixon on the campaign trail, and former President Barack Obama and Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez have also endorsed her candidacy.

In a statement to Truthout, Nixon slammed Moody for accepting donations from the private prison industry, saying that the contributions “from private prison executives and PACs are just more evidence of her corruption.”

“It’s no surprise that corrupt, unelected Ashley Moody is bankrolled by the exact corporations and executives that profit from mass incarceration and a broken justice and immigration system,” Nixon said in a statement. “I do not and will not ever accept donations from private prison PACs, executives, or any entity that profits off of exploiting human beings. Floridians deserve a senator who cannot be bought off by ICE and prison profiteers.”

Moody did not respond to an email seeking comment.

The private prison industry has also made donations to Republican candidates in several other high-profile races:

• GEO Group’s PAC donated $1,000 and CoreCivic’s PAC donated $5,000 to Republican Mike Rogers’s campaign in Michigan. Rogers is running against Democrat Abdul El-Sayed, who, like Nixon, has been endorsed by Sanders, Obama, and Ocasio-Cortez.
• The private prison industry — both its PACs and executives — donated a total of $18,500 to Republican Sen. Susan Collins’s campaign, who is running against Democrat Troy Jackson in Maine.
• Former CoreCivic CEO Damon Hininger donated a whopping $25,000 to a joint fundraising committee for Paxton, who is running for the open Senate seat in Texas, and other Republican PACs. Paxton is running against Democratic state lawmaker James Talarico.

During the 2025-2026 election cycle, Hininger donated a total of about $215,000 to Republican candidates and committees — more than any other private prison executive. CoreCivic was listed as his employer on his contributions, although he left the company last year.

Hininger hopes to replace Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tennessee) if she wins the state’s gubernatorial race, the Nashville Business Journal has reported. The governor will choose a replacement for Blackburn in the Senate should she require one, although it is unclear if that would be current Republican Gov. Bill Lee or Blackburn herself. Hininger and his wife donated more than $70,000 to Blackburn’s gubernatorial campaign, according to the Tennessee Lookout database of campaign contributions.

Trump’s second term has ushered in unprecedented levels of funding for ICE, which now has a budget larger than any other federal law enforcement agency.

The so-called One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which Trump signed into law last year, allocated $75 billion to ICE, to be disbursed over the course of four years, including $45 billion to build ICE detention facilities. That funding was in addition to the $10 billion Congress had already given to ICE for fiscal year 2025.

The influx of funding has led to lucrative contracts for private prison companies. For the first six months of 2026, GEO Group’s revenue was $1.44 billion — a 16 percent increase from the first six months of 2025.

“Last year was the most successful period for new business wins in our company’s history, and we expect 2026 to continue to be very active as well,” GEO Group CEO George Zoley said in a press release announcing the company’s earnings for the second quarter of 2026, which runs from April to the end of June.

CoreCivic’s revenue has also spiked. For the second quarter of 2026, the company’s total revenue increased just over 27 percent from the same period the year before, to almost $685 million. In a press release, the company attributed the increase in federal revenue to “increased occupancy at certain facilities, particularly those where we have contracts with ICE, and per diem increases.”

The private prison industry’s good fortune comes at the expense of thousands of people locked up in their jails.

Both adult and child detainees have repeatedly reported that they are held in inhumane and dangerous conditions. Since Trump’s second term began, 62 people have died in ICE custody. Of those, almost three-quarters were held in privately run detention facilities, according to data collected by lawyer and journalist Andrew Free.

The most recent death occurred at GEO Group’s Folkston D. Ray James ICE Processing Center in Georgia. In the early morning hours of October 23, staff found Luis Sandoval with a ligature around his neck, according to ICE’s statement. Earlier this month, people at the Georgia jail launched a hunger strike to protest their conditions and lengthy stays in detention. The Guardian reports that federal immigration officials and private contractors have allegedly threatened to force-feed the hunger strikers, which is considered a form of torture.

“We fled political persecution, religious persecution, or violence in our home countries,” the strikers wrote in an open letter published by local NPR affiliate WABE. “We came here hoping to find safety. Instead, we found ourselves in prison.”