How Democrat Dark Money Infiltrated America’s Reddest Red State

The effort to end the conservative majority in the Wyoming House is not simply a spontaneous, homegrown campaign. It is backed by a well-funded left-wing network stretching from national progressive organizations directly into Wyoming’s Republican primary.    

In a red state like Wyoming, the vast majority of political races are decided in the Republican primary, as few Democrats run in the November general. Instead, liberals often run as Republicans and get supporters to infiltrate the Republican primary at the polls to vote for them. In the Aug. 18 Republican primary, Democrats and left-wing groups celebrated the ouster of more than two dozen conservative Republicans from the state legislature.

The little-known, well-funded Wyoming Donor Alliance (WDA) publicly set out to “break the Freedom Caucus’ majority” in March, and national money helped finance the organization. North Carolina-based State Leadership Project gave WDA $100,000; Western Futures Fund gave it $75,000; and D.C.-based Sixteen Thirty Fund gave $50,000 directly to WDA under its former name, Wyoming Investor Network, according to 2024 tax records.          

State Leadership Project has distributed money to a network of similarly named state-level left-wing groups, including Utah Donor Collaborative, Oklahoma Donor Alliance, Alliance for a Better Iowa, and others. It also directly funded Alliance for a Better Utah, an organization whose name and model bear an obvious resemblance to Better Wyoming.

And the money flowing through State Leadership Project reaches even further upstream.

George Soros’ Open Society network provided substantial funding to the left-wing Tides Foundation, which has given State Leadership Project more than $1.1 million since 2020, including $807,800 in 2024 alone. IRS-derived grant records show Soros’ Open Society foundation gave roughly $20 million to the Tides Foundation between 2016 and 2022, according to Anti-Defamation League, with millions more flowing to Tides Foundation and other Tides entities in subsequent years.

Money is fungible. Follow the money far enough and the network extends well beyond Wyoming — and even beyond America’s borders. WDA funder Sixteen Thirty has received tens of millions of dollars from the Berger Action Fund, associated with Swiss billionaire and left-wing globalist Hansjörg Wyss.

The Wyoming operation may have had a local name, but its financial network was anything but local — and it’s anything but Republican. Each of these groups has an overtly progressive, far-left-of-center agenda.

In contrast, the two out-of-state PACs supporting conservatives, Make Liberty Win and State Freedom Caucus Action, were transparent about their mission to help conservative, liberty-minded candidates. They didn’t hide their agenda behind western-sounding names. 

Spending on GOP Primary

According to Wyoming’s state campaign finance information system, in the 2026 Republican primary, Wyoming Donor Alliance bankrolled $455,000 spent by the newly formed “PAC for a Better Wyoming,” which was characterized as their effort to defeat Freedom Caucus-aligned candidates.

WDA also supplied $30,000 to Better Wyoming Action and Research, according to the state’s campaign finance information system. The organization is run by leftist Nate Martin, husband of Wyoming state Rep. Karlee Provenza, a Democrat. Martin appeared in a series of videos targeting conservative Wyoming legislators.

These organizations intersect with the George B. Storer Foundation, a major longtime funder of Better Wyoming that also financially supports WyoFile, the statewide nonprofit news organization that has extensively covered and openly criticized the Freedom Caucus.

In Wyoming, the Donor Alliance network ultimately produced hundreds of thousands of dollars in Republican-primary spending aimed at the explicit goal WDA announced beforehand: ending the Freedom Caucus majority.

A State Representative Also Runs a Leftist Foundation

Rep. Liz Storer, D-Jackson, is not merely connected to the Storer Foundation — she is its longtime president and CEO and also serves on the board of Better Wyoming. Rep. Storer leads a foundation that has poured hundreds of thousands of dollars into a network of liberal organizations, helping produce a legislature considerably more favorable to Democrats, Storer, Rep. Provenza, and Better Wyoming.

Simply put, Democrats bought themselves a more liberal Wyoming House.

And WDA wasn’t working alone. Its own March strategy booklet identified a nearly 20-member coalition that included abortion-rights advocates, the Wyoming Education Association, the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association, and other progressive interest groups — all brought together under a “multi-organization coalition strategy” aimed at taking back the Wyoming House.

Together, groups within this “multi-organization” strategy, including pro-abortion WyoUnited, the Education Association, trial lawyer-aligned Common Sense Republicans, and the Wyoming Trial Lawyers Association openly coordinated to oust conservatives from the Wyoming legislature.

The Wyoming mainstream media, bankrolled by many of these same players, has failed to cover the unprecedented spending and highly coordinated campaign against conservatives.

The people of Wyoming deserve the facts about who financed the flip of the Wyoming legislature.

Tomi Strock represents House District 6 in the Wyoming House of Representatives. Strock is a 4th-generation rancher who has lived more than five decades in Converse County, Wyoming. She is a wife, daughter, mother, and grandmother who cares deeply about faith, family, and freedom. Her life is filled with hard work and the desire to see her family flourish. She was elected to the state legislature in 2022 and has championed school choice, homeschool freedom, and individual liberties.