A Trump-aligned dark money group that poured tens of millions into Donald Trump’s 2024 bid is bankrolling the Utah GOP’s push to repeal the state’s anti-gerrymandering law, Prop 4.
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In October, Utah Republican Party leaders launched an effort to repeal Prop. 4, the anti-gerrymandering ballot initiative approved by Utah voters in 2018. They first pursued the state’s indirect initiative process to force a vote by the legislature, then pivoted to a direct initiative for the 2026 ballot after Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson signalled she would likely reject the indirect route on constitutional grounds.
According to financial disclosures with Utah’s Lt. Governor office, an organization named “Securing American Greatness, Inc.” donated $1,087,500 to Utahns for Representative Government, the political issues committee (PIC) behind the ballot initiative seeking to repeal Prop. 4. The PIC is headed up by Utah GOP chairman Rob Axson.
Securing American Greatness, a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, can raise unlimited amounts of money without disclosing its donors. The organization is headed by Taylor Budowich, who served as deputy chief of staff for communications and personnel in the early days of the second Donald Trump administration. He left the White House in September.
Securing American Greatness first popped up during the 2024 presidential campaign, when it spent a reported $2 million on ads in Pennsylvania attacking Democrat Joe Biden. During the final stretch of the campaign, the organization donated $62 million to Trump’s super PAC Make America Great Again (MAGA Inc.), which Budowich founded.
Earlier this year, Securing American Greatness donated another $13.75 million to Trump’s super PAC. The group also spent a reported $17 million on ads pressuring Republican members of Congress to support his budget proposal.
The seven-figure Utah donation arrives as organizers race to qualify the repeal measure for the ballot. They have until Feb. 15 to collect more than 140,000 signatures statewide, plus signatures from 8% of registered voters in 26 of Utah’s 29 state Senate districts. That signature gathering effort officially kicked off on Tuesday.
It’s likely that the seven-figure donation is mostly to help fund their signature-gathering effort. Before they abandoned the indirect initiative, organizers put out a call to hire paid signature gatherers.
In an email to Utah Political Watch, Axson expressed appreciation for the support, but did not detail how the money would be used.
"We will continue to raise all that we need to be successful. Any donation will be used to execute on all we need to do. Signature gathering is one of those things and grateful for those standing with us," Axson said.
Using paid petition collectors in Utah for a ballot initiative is a costly proposition. In 2021, lawmakers voted to make the process for qualifying an initiative for the ballot more difficult by barring companies from paying signature gatherers based on the number of signatures they collect, mandating that they can only be paid an hourly rate. Conveniently, that restriction does not apply to political candidates.
Earlier this year, paid signature gathering for the successful referendum effort targeting HB267, the so-called “union busting” bill, cost organizers more than $1.5 million.
