¶ Partial conservative reallocation into ballot and local governance in Colorado
This theme captures a cautious, source-backed pattern: after Colorado Democrats consolidated statewide and legislative power, some conservative donor and operator networks appear to have increased relative emphasis on ballot initiatives, issue advocacy, nonprofit infrastructure, and local governance contests. The best-supported example is the Unite for Colorado / Advance Colorado / Michael Fields orbit.
This page does not support the stronger claim that wealthy Colorado conservatives as a whole abandoned statewide or legislative candidate elections. The record shows continued candidate activity, including 2020 Senate and state Senate spending and current statewide candidate committees. The theme is therefore partial reallocation, not total retreat.
The recurring mechanisms are:
- ballot-initiative drafting, filing, rehearing, petition, and issue-committee infrastructure;
- nonprofit and dark-money entities that can fund issue campaigns, public-policy advocacy, litigation-adjacent work, and media narratives;
- research and persuasion infrastructure, including think-tank validation and aligned media amplification;
- local school-board and district-governance campaign committees;
- campaign-service vendors, treasurers, compliance actors, canvassing firms, and direct-mail / text-message vendors;
- parent-rights, school-choice, Christian-right, and church-linked mobilization channels.
These mechanisms can move several flows: money, legitimacy, policy language, consultant labor, legal work, attention, signatures, candidate support, and local-governance leverage. The existence of a mechanism does not prove that every flow occurred in every case.
- The Colorado Sun reports Michael Fields saying Unite for Colorado was born out of the Democratic control of state government after 2018 because conservative donors needed a path forward without the House, Senate, or governor.
- The same article shows Unite's 2020 vehicle was not only a ballot mechanism: it distributed
$17.2 million across Republican, candidate-support, nonprofit, policy, and ballot-measure entities. That makes 2020 a mixed transition point rather than a clean break.
- The Advance Colorado source cluster shows later specialization in ballot and issue mechanisms, including official Title Board rows, reported Proposition / Amendment campaigns, and recurrent Fields / Taheri / West Group activity.
- The D11 Parents and Teachers TRACER slice directly shows one school-board committee receiving
$125,000.00 from ADVANCE COLORADO ACTION.
- The school-board intermediary cluster shows repeated campaign-service and vendor infrastructure in D11 / D20 and related local contests.
- The America's Mom, Moms for America, Wommack / Truth & Liberty, and Protect Kids Colorado materials support a parallel local / school-board / parental-rights infrastructure, though not necessarily the same donor vehicle or strategy as Advance Colorado.
- Unite for Colorado spent heavily in the 2020 Senate race and supported Republican state Senate candidates, so the early vehicle cannot be described as having abandoned candidate elections.
- Current TRACER bulk data shows continuing candidate-committee activity in the
2025-2026 statewide / state-level universe, including Republican committees. The data does not prove those committees are well-funded enough to win, but it does disprove a zero-activity frame.
- The current repo does not yet have a donor-by-donor allocation series. Without that, "largely abandoned serious efforts" remains stronger than the evidence can sustain.
- Different conservative factions behave differently. Business / fiscal conservatives, Christian-right school-board actors, local campaign vendors, conventional GOP committees, and federal-election actors may share some infrastructure while pursuing different mechanisms.
The current evidence supports this inference:
Some major Colorado conservative actors, especially the Advance / Unite network, adapted to Democratic statewide and legislative dominance by making ballot initiatives, issue advocacy, dark-money infrastructure, and selected local governance fights more central to their political strategy.
The current evidence does not support this stronger claim:
Colorado wealthy conservatives, as a whole, stopped treating statewide and legislative elections as serious strategic arenas.
- COVER STORY: 10 milestones that shaped Colorado's modern political world
- Conservative dark-money group bankrolled almost every major Republican effort in Colorado last year, tax docs show
- 2022 General Election Results - Governor/Lieutenant Governor
- Colorado election spending: How donors are shaping the 2024 races
- The Redprint: How Advance Colorado and Anonymous Donors Shape the Political Landscape
- DAVIS: On Holy Wars & Ballot Initiatives
- Shut Out of Power at Colorado’s Capitol, Conservative Parental Rights Groups Employ ‘Workarounds’ And Other Tactics
- Analysis: Conservative Dark Money Group Dominates Colorado’s Ballot Initiative Process for 2026
- Ballot Initiatives 50 & 108: Ready Colorado Protests Too Much
- Who is Advance Colorado?
- $600k in 90 Days? A Tax-Record Treasure Hunt
- Advance_990_2022_partial.pdf
- Advance_990_2023_partial.pdf
- Anschutz_990_2017.pdf
- Anschutz_990_2018.pdf
- Colorado-Dawn-990-2024.pdf
- HHC_990_2023.pdf
- Ready_990_2024-3.pdf
- Common Dollars & Common Sense: Inside the Persuasion Machine Shaping Colorado Elections
- Despite Claim Not to Take Sides, Common Sense Institute Accepts Funds from Conservative Advocacy Group and Pays GOP Consulting Firm To Conduct Research
- Spiked: A Conservative ‘Shadow’ Hangs Over Colorado Newspapers Owned by GOP Billionaire Phil Anschutz
- DAVIS: Your Questions About 'The Redprint,' Answered
- 2025 Review: Dark Money in Colorado Politics
- Research & Rhetoric: How Republicans Manufactured a Political Attack on John Hickenlooper
- Colorado GOP Leader Claims Phil Anschutz Funds Advance Colorado, a Conservative Activist Group
- DAVIS: The Dark Money in Your Mailbox
- D11 Parents and Teachers TRACER transaction slice 2025-2026
- Christian Nationalism, Dark Money, and the Attack on Public Education in Colorado
- Advance Colorado Title Board initiative corpus capture, 2023-2026
- Advance Colorado target initiative TRACER committee-detail captures
- Colorado SOS petition-entity live capture for Advance Colorado initiative follow-up
- Daniel Cole takes reins at Republicans' Senate Majority Fund campaign organization
- Why you're getting so many political texts, and how they're giving candidates an advantage
- Daniel Fenlason
- Victor's Canvassing - Colorado Payee - Transparency USA
- Cole Communications LLC - Colorado Payee - Transparency USA
- D11 Parents and Teachers - Colorado Committee - Transparency USA
- D11 Momentum
- Superintendent is retiring after Colorado school board president urged parents to search schools for objectionable material
- Victor's Canvassing, LLC - 20191514077 - Colorado
- Follow the Money - canvassing
- Cole Communications, LLC Colorado SOS business summary
- Victor's Canvassing, LLC Colorado SOS business summary
- Colorado Dawn Colorado SOS business summary
- Saint Vrain, Belleview, and Curtis address-census source pass
- FEC committee overview captures for Saint Vrain and Belleview address overlap
- Address-census Colorado Springs citywide current-filing sweep
- Seducing the Bride of Christ
- Dark Money and the School Board Industrial Complex
- Fire-Breathing Lesbians & Satan-Worshipping S.O.Bs: The Private Chat Logs of a Christian Conservative School District Group
- SPRINGS OPPORTUNITY FUND - 20235046590
- D11 PARENTS AND TEACHERS - 20255051114
- Elections Division response to motion for attorneys' fees, Larson matter
- America's Mom current site and WordPress API source capture
- Moms for America school-board leadership and media reports source pass
- Moms for America annual-report PDF archive
- Garfield RE-2 recall official local and TRACER source pass
- 6939.html
- 7050.html
- 7100.html
- 7295.html
- 7383.html
- 7432.html
- 7702.html
- 7808.html
- 8064.html
- 8165.html
- America's Mom CDX and endpoint expansion
- America's Mom get-involved Wayback capture 2021-06-16
- America's Mom contact page archived 2021-06-14
- America's Mom donate page archived 2022-05-24
- America's Mom Moms for America page archived 2022-05-23
- America's Mom get involved page archived 2023-09-26
- America's Mom dot-co root archived 2021-11-25
- Moms for America ProPublica nonprofit records
- Far Right Activist & Election Denier Reveals School Board Recall Defense Plan on Secret Recording
- DAVIS: This November’s School Board Elections Are More Important Than You Think
- DAVIS: Bullying Kids is Bad Politics