The Smoligarchs: Jackie Horvath Stout

Hoo owns Indiana's political candidates

The Smoligarchs is a series on the biggest political donors in Indiana. Every state has influential real estate developers, auto dealership owners, medical industry insiders, large agribusiness farmers, and other wealthy individuals with outsized sway in their communities and at the state level. Many of these folks keep their far-right politics hidden behind philanthropy or operate in the shadows, shunning attention altogether. These are the small-scale oligarchs who own the politicians and REALLY make policy in the Hoosier State.

source: South Bend Tribune

Why is she on this list?

Stout is far and away the largest donor to the gubernatorial campaign of disgraced former Indiana Attorney General Curtis Hill, having contributed more than $175,000 this cycle - seven times the next closest Hill backer.

source: Indiana Campaign Finance website

What is the source of all that money?

From the company’s website,

“Horvath Communications was started in 1996 in South Bend, Indiana by Jackie Horvath. We own and develop wireless infrastructure for mobile network operators. The core of Horvath’s business is in owning and developing cellular towers, with the first being built in our hometown, before expanding nationwide. Our ownership footprint stretches from California to Maine. We work with the wireless carriers to meet their needs for network expansion nationwide. Since 1996, Horvath has developed over 1,200 tower locations. Horvath has a staff of 15 employees that oversees its site development projects throughout the country.”

Since 2017, Horvath Communications has moved into the Distributed Antenna Systems space, building networks for large venues like hospitals, casinos, office complexes, and amusement parks. Jackie’s daughter, Erin Horvath Moskwinski, now serves as president of the company, running the business day-to-day.

Any other political activity?

Stout has contributed to a few candidates in much smaller amounts (including traitorous former President Donald Trump as late as 2023 - to whom she also demonstrates fealty by spraying herself the same shade of orange), but nowhere near as much as she has given to Hill. The most popular recipient of her largesse after the disgraced former Attorney General is an organization called Hoosier Conservative Voices. According to their website, Hoosier Conservative Voices is a political action committee “dedicated to electing state & local candidates in Northern Indiana.” Jackie founded the organization and her son, Ben, serves as executive director. The PAC has done very little as far as donating to candidates directly, most of their expenditures going toward consulting and catering (and a candidate’s wife’s photography business 🤔). Hill, the most explicit Christian nationalist among Indiana’s big five Republican gubernatorial candidates, can point to very few endorsements. He does, however, tout one from Hoosier Conservative Voices.

Hill also touts an endorsement from disgraced former General Michael Flynn, the nation’s leading Christian nationalist and a key member of Trump’s coup braintrust.

Jackie Stout’s LinkedIn profile also claims she serves as Board President for a group called Voices for Life, a “nonprofit that exists to fight abortion on the frontlines in Indiana.” Son Ben Horvath serves as Vice President. This is one of those groups that, among other activities, coordinates “sidewalk advocacy,” which is a euphemism for harassing and misinforming people outside of abortion clinics. Even more concerning, their website maintains what I can only describe as a 'hit list’ of Indiana abortion providers with a list of “crimes” they’ve supposedly committed.

Voices for Life’s abortion provider “hit list,” an invitation to stochastic terrorism

The moral of today’s story? Remember kids, just because someone looks like a trying-to-be-cool grandma with a spray tan and pleather pants doesn’t mean they don’t support violent domestic extremists.