Tobacco manufacturers donate $27K to Idaho AG Labrador’s campaign, years after settlement tweaks

BOISE (Idaho Capital Sun) — Republican Idaho Attorney General Raúl Labrador and Gov. Brad Little’s re-election campaigns received more than $20,000 each in donations from tobacco and nicotine manufacturers.

The donations come in the first election cycle for the statewide offices after Labrador struck a complex deal in 2024 with tobacco manufacturers to essentially not fight in court about a pool of settlement payments that tobacco manufacturers tend to dispute. At the time of the agreement, Labrador’s office said the deal essentially guaranteed the state a big chunk of money up front, but the deal also left millions of dollars on the table that could have come to the state over a longer period of time.

In an interview last week, Labrador said he didn’t communicate with the tobacco manufacturers about their contributions to his campaign, and he defended the deal over the settlement funds. His campaign received $27,000 in donations from tobacco manufacturers. 

“They donated after the litigation was done. … Probably for them, it’s also a good thing to get out of the litigation and not having to spend years and years of litigation,” Labrador said. “So, they support the work that I do. They support other things that I’m doing, and I don’t really question; I receive donations from a lot of different people.”

Labrador, the state’s top attorney and a former congressman, said many other states reached a similar deal. The agreement was over disputed funds from a massive 1998 settlement with tobacco manufacturers that set up decades of multi-million dollar payments to states to reduce smoking.

“It was costing the states millions of dollars to litigate these cases, so in the end, it ended up just being better for the state. And we received a substantial amount of money for the state, and we didn’t have to worry about: Would we lose in some future case … then, you lose the entire amount?” Labrador said. 

Little’s re-election campaign received $25,000 in donations from tobacco and nicotine manufacturers. His campaign could not immediately be reached for comment. 

The online prediction market platform Kalshi donated $5,000 to Labrador’s campaign last week, months after Labrador pushed for the state’s authority to regulate sports betting, Idaho Education News reported.

Companies linked to Marlboro, Zyn makers donated the most to Labrador’s campaigns

The tobacco manufacturers also donated to other state officials, including to several state lawmakers, along with political action committees, or PACs. On the whole, Labrador received the most donations, with Little behind in a close second.

Companies linked to Philip Morris, the manufacturer of the cigarette brand Marlboro and Zyn nicotine pouches, were among the biggest donors to re-election campaigns for Labrador and Little. The companies donated $22,000 to Labrador through three affiliated companies, and $20,000 to Little through the same string of companies, along with making donations to Idaho PACs and other statewide and legislative candidates.

• PMI U.S. Corporate Services, a domestic arm that focuses on smokeless alternatives such as Zyns, gave Labrador $5,000 in the primary, and $5,000 in the general election. Those are both the maximum donations allowed per election cycle in Idaho. This corporation also gave the same donations to Little in the primary and general, along with donations to several incumbent Republican legislators and statewide officials. The company donated $15,000 between this year and last year to the Idaho Prosperity Fund, a PAC run by Alex LaBeau, the head of the Idaho Association of Industry and Commerce, a powerful lobbying group in the state. 
• PMI Global Services gave Labrador $1,000 in the primary and in the general. The first donation came through on Sept. 25, 2024, about five months after Labrador had reached the new deal on tobacco settlement funds. The company donated $1,000 to 2026 campaigns for Idaho State Controller Brandon Woolf and Idaho Secretary of State Phil McGrane, along with smaller donations to dozens of state legislators, Republicans and Democrats alike. The company also gave $15,000 in 2025 to the Idaho Victory Fund, a PAC, which is run in part by Chad Hennggeler, who works as a fruit grower, Ysabel Bilbao, an Idaho lobbyist.
• Altria Client Services, which is owned by the tobacco company’s parent company, gave Labrador $5,000 donations in the primary and general elections. The company also gave Little, the state’s governor, $5,000 in the primary election. (The company’s lobbying arm, based in Washington, D.C., gave Little a separate $5,000 primary donation.) The company gave maximum $1,000 primary and general election donations to several members of Republican legislative leadership’s re-election campaigns, including House Speaker Mike Moyle, Senate President Pro Tempore Kelly Anthon and House Majority Leader Jason Monks. Smaller donations went to other incumbent Republican legislators in Idaho, along with Democratic state Rep. Steve Berch, who has raised the most of any legislative candidate in Idaho. 

Reynolds American, a North Carolina-based tobacco manufacturer behind cigarette brands such as Newport, Camel and Lucky Strike, contributed $5,000 to Labrador’s primary election campaign. The company gave the same amount to Little’s primary campaign, along with:

• $1,500 to the Senate Republicans PAC of Idaho
• $1,000 to either primary or general campaigns for: state Rep. Tanya Burgoyne, who lost her primary election; state Sen. Jim Guthrie; state Rep. Chris Bruce; and state Rep. Elaine Price, who are all Republican incumbents. Republican state Rep. Rob Beiswenger received a $500 donation from the company, along with Idaho House Minority Leader Ilana Rubel, a Democrat.

Companies linked to the tobacco manufacturers could not be immediately reached for comment. In a statement, Philip Morris’s domestic company said its donations are part of a bigger effort. 

“Philip Morris International’s U.S. businesses (PMI U.S.) participate transparently in the political process, including by supporting candidates and organizations that understand the issues affecting our business, adult consumers, and trade partners,” the spokesperson for PMI U.S. Corporate Services said. “We make these contributions as part of a comprehensive government affairs engagement.”