Just like the housing market, the cost of campaigning in Wyoming is being jacked up by profligate out-of-state spending.
And, just as ramped-up housing costs create automatic tax increases to feed the swamp, ramped-up campaign spending seems designed to increase taxes and the federal footprint in Wyoming.
Ever since the McCain-Feingold Act of 2002, campaign financing increasingly looks like a money-laundering operation. So, it takes more than a little unraveling to see who, really, is behind the big bucks.
But, when you look at the campaign finance streams that fed the torrent of mailers and attacks on conservative candidates last August, you can see all the classic hallmarks of a socialist influence operation.
Near the center of the hub is the shadowy Wyoming Donor Alliance (WDA). This newly-created entity has a minimal web page that discloses zero information about its donors, directors, or political agenda.
But it published a 20-page full-color strategy booklet titled, “Break the Freedom Caucus Majority: A Coalition Strategy for 2026.”
The WDA planned a $1.5 million budget to “Launch an Unprecedented Independent Expenditure (IE) Campaign” between May 10 and August 18, 2026.
Then, on November 3, it planned to “Defend Democratic incumbents & fill the ballot box!”
The WDA supplied the entire $455,000 budget for the newly-created Political Action Committee for a Better Wyoming.
It also gave $30,000 to its sister, Better Wyoming Action and Research, which is led by the husband of Democratic Representative Karlee Provenza.
You might remember Better Wyoming A & R for its football-themed Facebook ads to defeat the Freedom Caucus.
Better Wyoming, in turn, receives about a quarter-million dollars per year from the George B. Storer Foundation - a multi-million dollar funding stream for a who’s who of progressive causes.
Liz Storer, another Democratic Representative in Wyoming’s House, is its President and CEO.
In Wyoming, the Storer Foundation bankrolls WyoFile and the Equality State Policy Center to the tune of $100,000 per year each, according to philanthropy.org.
But it also is deeply invested in national progressive causes too numerous to list.
Wyoming Democrat politicians have fingerprints all over the money that flooded Wyoming’s Republican primaries.
But a deeper look finds national and global powers feeding into the same money stream.
The Wyoming Donor Alliance received $100,000 from the North Carolina-based State Leadership Project, $75,000 from the Western Futures Fund, and $50,000 from the Washington, D.C.-based Sixteen-Thirty Fund.
The State Leadership Project, in turn, got $1.1 million from the Tides Foundation, which is bankrolled by tens of millions of dollars from the George Soros Open Society network.
The Sixteen-Thirty Fund is bankrolled by tens of millions from the Berger Action Fund which is connected to Swiss citizen and Jackson resident billionaire Hansjörg Wyss.
Did I mention that it resembles a money-laundering operation?
The dizzying array of pass-through PACs and charitable funds probably has you so confused that you are ready to stop reading.
If you do, the operation has accomplished its objective. It is designed to scramble the circuits of even the most dogged investigators.
This insulates recipients of the money from any direct connection to George Soros, Hansjörg Wyss or other foreign influencers of Wyoming elections.
But patterns are patterns. Let the reader be the judge.
The WDA was at the center of a coalition of leftist interest groups ranging from WyoUnited (a radical pro-abortion fund) to the Wyoming Education Association (WEA) and the Trial Lawyers Association.
The Trial Lawyers spent an unprecedented $2 million to defeat conservative Republicans across the state.
Together these groups changed the future makeup of the legislature so radically that they are already scuttling previous legislative initiatives and talking about Medicaid expansion.
That’s bad news for Wyoming conservatives. But it’s old news.
The new news is that many of the same players have now set their sights on defeating Wyoming’s first ballot initiative in 30 years.
“Proposition 1 creates a 50 percent homestead exemption on the assessed value of a primary Wyoming residence. It applies only to residents who live in the state at least six months per year and have done so for at least one year. It does not apply to second homes, vacation properties, or out-of-state speculators,” as Cowboy State Daily columnist Fred Harrison recently put it.
Just as global billionaires outspent fiscal conservatives in campaigns for the state legislature now, those same billionaires are pouring money into Wyoming to keep your property taxes high.
Whether you like it, or not, Wyoming has become a global battleground.
As a result, Wyoming citizens need to get wise in a hurry.
When someone in a Stetson hands you the reins to a bucking bronco made out of wood, think twice before you wheel it into the coral.
Looking at the financial stream can help you see what’s lurking inside.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
