Utah Prop. 4 repeal: $4.35M dark money blitz

A Trump‑aligned dark money network is pouring cash into Utah to kill the state’s anti‑gerrymandering law—another $1 million last week—bringing the repeal campaign to $4.35 million in roughly five weeks.

Securing American Greatness, a 501(c)(4) that can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing its donors, sent the latest $1 million to Utahns for Representative Government (UFRG), the organization pushing the repeal of Prop. 4. So far, it’s the only funder.

UFRG, the political issue committee headed by Utah GOP Chairman Rob Axson, has until Feb. 15 to collect just over 140,000 signatures statewide, plus signatures from 8% of registered voters in 26 of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts, to land the repeal on the 2026 ballot.

Prop. 4, passed by voters in 2018, created an independent commission to redraw the state’s political boundaries during the once-a-decade redistricting cycle. The measure also outlawed partisan gerrymandering. In 2020, the GOP-controlled legislature repealed Prop. 4 before it could be implemented. After a coalition of organizations sued, a judge threw out the congressional map approved by the legislature in 2021.

The eye-popping $4.35 million donated to UFRG by Securing American Greatness far outpaces the $2.8 million the group that initially qualified Prop. 4 raised in 2018. The largest donor to the original ballot initiative was the Action Now Initiative, a non-partisan organization that contributed just over $1.1 million. The largest individual donor was former Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Weinholtz, who kicked in $200,000.

The millions contributed by Securing American Greatness to the Prop. 4 repeal effort is also more than what backers raised by the groups that put two other successful initiatives on the 2018 ballot.

Utah Patients Coalition, the group that sponsored the Medical Cannabis Act, raised $956,996 in that effort.
Utah Decides Healthcare, which sponsored the initiative that expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, raised more than $3.7 million. Most of the money behind the effort came from The Fairness Project, a Washington, D.C. social justice organization.

Though not a ballot initiative, the 2007 ballot box fight over school vouchers was one of the most expensive in Utah history. That year, the Utah Legislature passed the nation’s first statewide private school voucher program. Opponents launched a referendum effort, successfully collecting enough signatures to block the program and put it on the November ballot.

The pro and anti-voucher sides of the issue raised more than $9.3 million trying to sway voters. The pro-voucher Parents for Choice in Education raised more than $5.1 million, with 75% of the money coming from former Overstock CEO Patrick Byrne and his parents. The National Education Association and Utah Education Association funneled more than $3 million to the anti-voucher effort. More than 62% of Utahns voted to reject the school voucher program.