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A network of ultrawealthy Christian donors is spending nearly $12 million to mobilize Republican-leaning voters and purge more than a million people from the rolls in key swing states, aiming to tilt the 2024 election in favor of former President Donald Trump.

These previously unreported plans are the work of a group named Ziklag, a little-known charity whose donors have included some of the wealthiest conservative Christian families in the nation, including the billionaire Uihlein family, who made a fortune in office supplies, the Greens, who run Hobby Lobby, and the Wallers, who own the Jockey apparel corporation. Recipients of Ziklag’s largesse include Alliance Defending Freedom, which is the Christian legal group that led the overturning of Roe v. Wade, plus the national pro-Trump group Turning Point USA and a constellation of right-of-center advocacy groups.

ProPublica and Documented obtained thousands of Ziklag’s members-only email newsletters, internal videos, strategy documents and fundraising pitches, none of which has been previously made public. They reveal the group’s 2024 plans and its long-term goal to underpin every major sphere of influence in American society with Christianity. In the Bible, the city of Ziklag was where David and his soldiers found refuge during their war with King Saul.

“We are in a spiritual battle and locked in a terrible conflict with the powers of darkness,” says a strategy document that lays out Ziklag’s 30-year vision to “redirect the trajectory of American culture toward Christ by bringing back Biblical structure, order and truth to our Nation.”

Ziklag’s 2024 agenda reads like the work of a political organization. It plans to pour money into mobilizing voters in Arizona who are “sympathetic to Republicans” in order to secure “10,640 additional unique votes” — almost the exact margin of President Joe Biden’s win there in 2020. The group also intends to use controversial AI software to enable mass challenges to the eligibility of hundreds of thousands of voters in competitive states.

In a recording of a 2023 internal strategy discussion, a Ziklag official stressed that the objective was the same in other swing states. “The goal is to win,” the official said. “If 75,000 people wins the White House, then how do we get 150,000 people so we make sure we win?”

According to the Ziklag files, the group has divided its 2024 activities into three different operations targeting voters in battleground states: Checkmate, focused on funding so-called election integrity groups; Steeplechase, concentrated on using churches and pastors to get out the vote; and Watchtower, aimed at galvanizing voters around the issues of “parental rights” and opposition to transgender rights and policies supporting health care for trans people.

In a member briefing video, one of Ziklag’s spiritual advisers outlined a plan to “deliver swing states” by using an anti-transgender message to motivate conservative voters who are exhausted with Trump.

But Ziklag is not a political organization: It is a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt charity, the same legal designation as the United Way or Boys and Girls Club. Such organizations do not have to publicly disclose their funders, and donations are tax deductible. In exchange, they are “absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or intervening in, any political campaign on behalf of (or in opposition to) any candidate for elective public office,” according to the IRS.

ProPublica and Documented presented the findings of their investigation to six nonpartisan lawyers and legal experts. All expressed concern that Ziklag was testing or violating the law.

The reporting by ProPublica and Documented “casts serious doubt on this organization’s status as a 501(c)(3) organization,” said Roger Colinvaux, a professor at Catholic University’s Columbus School of Law.

“I think it’s across the line without a question,” said Lloyd Hitoshi Mayer, a University of Notre Dame law professor.

Ziklag officials did not respond to a detailed list of questions. Martin Nussbaum, an attorney who said he was the group’s general counsel, said in a written response that “some of the statements in your email are correct. Others are not,” but he then did not respond to a request to specify what was erroneous. The group is seeking to “align” the culture “with Biblical values and the American constitution, and that they will serve the common good,” he wrote. Using the official tax name for Ziklag, he wrote that “USATransForm does not endorse candidates for public office.” He declined to comment on the group’s members.

There are no bright lines or magic words that the IRS might look for when it investigates a charitable organization for engaging in political intervention, said Mayer. Instead, the agency examines the facts and circumstances of a group’s activities and makes a conclusion about whether the group violated the law.

The biggest risk for charities that intervene in political campaigns, Mayer said, is loss of their tax-exempt status. Donors’ ability to deduct their donations can be a major sell, not to mention it can create “a halo effect” for the group, Mayer added.

“They may be able to get more money this way,” he said, adding, “It boils down to tax evasion at the end of the day.”

“Dominion Over the Seven Mountains”

Ziklag has largely escaped scrutiny until now. The group describes itself as a “private, confidential, invitation-only community of high-net-worth Christian families.”

According to internal documents, it boasts more than 125 members that include business executives, pastors, media leaders and other prominent........

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