Over the past several weeks, I have been asking a simple question:
Who is influencing Idaho politics, and how are these organizations connected?
I didn’t start this research with a conclusion. I started following publicly available records.
What I found was a web of Idaho organizations, national organizations, political campaigns, shared leaders and significant amounts of money.
Before we go any further, however, one thing needs to be clear:
Two organizations working together does not make them the same organization. Sharing a board member, donor, coalition partner or policy goal does not prove centralized control.
But relationships matter, and Idahoans deserve to know about them.
So let’s start here at home.
Former Idaho Representative Chenele Dixon is the founder and executive director of Idaho Solutions, an organization focused on civic participation, dialogue and public policy.
On September 17, Idaho Solutions is hosting Luke Mayville, Executive Director of Reclaim Idaho, for a discussion about HJR 4 and Idaho’s citizen-initiative process.
At first glance, that could simply be one organization inviting another political figure to speak.
But it isn’t their first documented intersection.
In 2025, Reclaim Idaho says it joined other public-education organizations to launch the Save Our Schools Idaho town-hall tour.
When that tour came to Twin Falls, Chenele Dixon moderated the event and was specifically identified as Executive Director of Idaho Solutions.
So we already have:
Reclaim Idaho → Save Our Schools Idaho → Chenele Dixon / Idaho Solutions
The September event isn’t the beginning of the relationship.
And there are other connections.
Cindy Wilson provides another bridge between these organizations.
Wilson was the Democratic nominee for Idaho Superintendent of Public Instruction in 2018. Today, Mormon Women for Ethical Government identifies her as its Idaho State Director and says she serves on the boards of Idaho Solutions, Take Back Idaho and Idaho Children Are Primary.
IRS-derived records for the separate Idaho Solutions Foundation list Wilson as vice president, alongside Chenele Dixon as a director.
Why does that matter?
Because Mormon Women for Ethical Government was also a member organization of Idahoans for Open Primaries, the coalition behind Proposition 1.
And so was:
That gives us another documented path:
Idaho Solutions → Cindy Wilson → Mormon Women for Ethical Government → Idahoans for Open Primaries ← Reclaim Idaho
That doesn’t prove Idaho Solutions funded Proposition 1.
It doesn’t prove Wilson controlled the campaign.
It does show overlapping leadership and coalition relationships.
Another name that repeatedly appears is former Republican House Speaker Bruce Newcomb.
Newcomb was involved with Take Back Idaho, which formed in 2021 to influence Republican legislative primaries.
Take Back Idaho’s 2022 voter guide endorsed Chenele Dixon in her District 24 Republican House race.
Newcomb later became a central figure in Idahoans for Open Primaries, serving as its treasurer and helping develop the Proposition 1 effort alongside Luke Mayville and others.
So now another route appears:
Chenele Dixon ← Take Back Idaho → Bruce Newcomb → Idahoans for Open Primaries ← Luke Mayville / Reclaim Idaho
Again, this doesn’t make these organizations one organization.
But the relationships are real.
This is where the money becomes significant.
In 2024, Idaho voters rejected Proposition 1, which proposed replacing Idaho’s partisan primary with a top-four primary and implementing ranked-choice voting in the general election.
The campaign supporting it, Idahoans for Open Primaries, raised approximately:
Among its major reported contributors were:
Article IV → approximately $2.2 million
Unite America-related entities → approximately $1.8 million
Way Back PAC → $250,000
Reclaim Idaho → $160,000
Reclaim Idaho’s involvement went beyond money.
Luke Mayville served as a spokesman for Idahoans for Open Primaries. Reclaim Idaho was a coalition member, participated in litigation with the organization and even provided its Boise office as an official petition-signing location.
So Reclaim Idaho’s role in Proposition 1 was financial, organizational and operational.
Now let’s follow some of that money upstream.
Hopewell Fund is a large Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit grantmaking organization.
Its public filings show:
$1.35 million → Unite America Institute in 2022–2023
and approximately:
$433,000 → Article IV in 2022.
Two years later, Unite America-related entities and Article IV became two of the largest financial supporters of Idaho’s Proposition 1 campaign.
But here’s where we need to keep our facts straight.
The records establish relationships between the organizations.
They do not establish a dollar-for-dollar pipeline into Idaho.
That’s an important distinction.
Another national organization has an even older connection to Mayville’s work: The Fairness Project.
Reclaim Idaho organized the grassroots campaign behind Idaho’s successful 2018 Medicaid expansion initiative, Proposition 2.
Volunteers gathered most of the necessary signatures.
But The Fairness Project provided substantial professional assistance.
Contemporary reporting found that it spent nearly $500,000 helping qualify the initiative, including $460,944 for professional signature gathering.
It then contributed another approximately:
which supported passage of Proposition 2.
Its involvement surrounding the Idaho Medicaid effort therefore approached $1 million.
That doesn’t mean The Fairness Project handed Reclaim Idaho a million dollars. Much of the spending went toward professional signature gathering and the separate campaign supporting Proposition 2.
But the partnership itself is documented.
Then Hopewell appears again.
From 2020 through 2024, IRS-derived records show approximately:
Notice the dates.
The Idaho Medicaid campaign happened in 2018, before those documented Hopewell grants.
So we cannot say Hopewell funded The Fairness Project’s 2018 work with Reclaim Idaho.
What we can say is:
The Fairness Project worked with Mayville’s Idaho Medicaid initiative in 2018.
And later:
Hopewell became a significant identifiable funder of The Fairness Project.
Both facts matter.
So does the difference between them.
Now we move one more step upstream.
The Foundation to Promote Open Society, part of the broader Open Society philanthropic network associated with George Soros, has provided substantial funding to Hopewell.
Public IRS-derived records show approximately:
through 13 grants between 2020 and 2024.
That’s a documented financial relationship.
But Hopewell receives money from many sources.
Therefore, these records do not prove:
George Soros funded Idaho Proposition 1.
They do not prove Open Society funded Reclaim Idaho.
And they do not prove Open Society funded Idaho Solutions.
What they establish is that an Open Society-related foundation funded Hopewell, and Hopewell funded organizations that appear elsewhere in this election-reform network.
Follow the connection, but don’t claim more than the records prove.
Here’s where this comes full circle.
In 2025, Unite America featured Chenele Dixon and Idaho Solutions in its “Reform in Action” series, highlighting Dixon’s views on Idaho’s primary system.
Remember:
Hopewell had previously given $1.35 million to Unite America Institute.
Unite America-related entities later contributed approximately $1.8 million to Idahoans for Open Primaries.
And now Unite America is publicly highlighting Dixon and Idaho Solutions.
But once again:
There is a documented relationship and shared interest in election reform.
A direct financial relationship has not been established.
That distinction matters.
Rather than looking only several organizations upstream, I also wanted to know whether we could identify money going directly to Reclaim Idaho-related entities.
We can.
Public nonprofit records identify a:
for a project described as developing citizen advocates to protect Idaho’s democracy and quality of life.
Records also show:
from All Hands on Deck Network, the legal entity associated with Movement Voter Project, in 2022.
These are direct funding relationships.
That makes them stronger evidence than attempting to guess which donor’s money might have traveled through several organizations before eventually reaching Idaho.
Strip away all the names and complexity, and these are some of the clearest documented connections:
Foundation to Promote Open Society
↓
$28.3 million
↓
Hopewell Fund
From Hopewell:
$4.2 million → The Fairness Project
$1.35 million → Unite America Institute
$433,000 → Article IV
Then in Idaho:
The Fairness Project → major professional/financial assistance → 2018 Medicaid initiative
Article IV → approximately $2.2 million → Idahoans for Open Primaries
Unite America-related entities → approximately $1.8 million → Idahoans for Open Primaries
Way Back PAC → $250,000 → Idahoans for Open Primaries
Reclaim Idaho → $160,000 → Idahoans for Open Primaries
And organizationally:
Luke Mayville / Reclaim Idaho ↔ Idahoans for Open Primaries
Bruce Newcomb / Take Back Idaho ↔ Idahoans for Open Primaries
Cindy Wilson → Idaho Solutions + MWEG + Take Back Idaho
Chenele Dixon / Idaho Solutions ↔ Save Our Schools Idaho ↔ Reclaim Idaho
Idaho Solutions → hosting Luke Mayville on HJR 4
That’s a lot of intersecting relationships.
I have not found evidence establishing:
Open Society → direct funding → Idaho Solutions
Hopewell → direct funding → Idaho Solutions
Hopewell → direct funding → Reclaim Idaho
Unite America → direct funding → Idaho Solutions
George Soros personally → Reclaim Idaho or Idaho Solutions
The Fairness Project → current HJR 4 effort
Nor does this research establish that one organization controls the others.
If we’re asking for transparency, we need to hold ourselves to that same standard.
For me, this isn’t ultimately about George Soros, Chenele Dixon, Luke Mayville, Bruce Newcomb or Cindy Wilson.
It’s about something bigger:
We hear words like grassroots, nonpartisan, civic engagement and democracy reform all the time.
But those labels don’t tell us who funds an organization, who sits on its board, who its coalition partners are or what national organizations are involved.
That doesn’t automatically make an organization good or bad.
If national conservative organizations pour millions into Idaho politics, Idahoans deserve to know.
If national progressive organizations do it, Idahoans deserve to know that too.
If I demand transparency from one side, I had better demand it from my own.
I’m not telling you what conclusion to reach.
I’m showing you what I found.
Some connections involve money.
Some involve people.
Some involve coalitions.
Some involve common political goals.
They aren’t all the same.
But they are worth understanding.
So don’t take my word for it.
Follow the organizations.
Follow their leadership.
Follow their partners.
Follow the money.
Then look at the evidence and decide for yourself what it means.
This is only the beginning of my deep dive into Idaho’s political connections. This will be a series.
We often hear that people moving into Idaho are trying to “Californicate” our state.
I would challenge that narrative.
What I’m finding is that many people who have held positions of influence in Idaho politics have deep Idaho roots themselves.
Maybe we need to stop looking only at who is moving into Idaho and start looking more closely at who has been shaping Idaho from within.
Don’t simply take my word for any of this.
Read the filings. Look at the campaign-finance reports. Read what these organizations say about themselves. Check my work.
Then draw your own conclusions.
Because Idahoans deserve to know who is helping shape Idaho’s future.
