Kevin Lundberg, a leader of Protect Kids Colorado, a group trying to get anti-trans initiatives on Colorado’s 2026 ballot, told a radio host last week that his group was in talks to get funding from at least one big national donor – but that they backed out after deciding it would be too difficult to win in Colorado.
The group is running two anti-trans initiatives: #109 would effectively ban students who are trans from playing sports; #110 would ban certain gender-affirming care procedures from being performed on anyone under 18. Another initiative, #108, aims to increase the penalty for child sex trafficking to life imprisonment.
Lundberg went on to say that major donors who had considered funding Protect Kids Colorado’s efforts instead copied his group’s ideas for similar initiatives in Maine and other states.
“We thought there was a professional funder who was going to run a parallel effort for these initiatives, and that fell through. Because all of the big money around the country said, ‘Colorado, no, we’re not going to do this there,’” Lundberg said in a Feb. 24 interview on KLZ Radio’s The Kim Monson Show. “They actually took our ideas, and the women’s sports program initiative has already qualified for the ballot up in Maine, because they took our idea, ran with it. and said, ‘Not in Colorado, but we’ll do it in Maine.’ They’re working on it in Nevada and I think Arizona. But here in Colorado, you know, the big smart money in politics, you might say, have said ‘We’re done with Colorado,’ that it’s just not going to happen.”
Lundberg didn’t name any prospective donors who might have backed out of funding Protect Kids Colorado, and didn’t respond to an emailed request for further information. As such, there’s no definitive way to know who he was referring to.
Maine’s initiative, run by the group Protect Girls’ Sports in Maine, isn’t exactly like those supported by Protect Kids Colorado: it would ban trans youth from playing sports, while also banning them from using school bathrooms congruent with their gender.
Maine’s campaign finance records show that a political action committee supporting this initiative was bankrolled by far-right Illinois billionaire Richard Uihlein. Uihlein donated $800,000, almost all of which was paid to Morning in America, an Arizona-based political strategy firm, to run a professional petition-gathering campaign. Uihlein’s donation was first reported by Bangor Daily News.
The packaging supply magnate has grown increasingly prominent in recent years as a megadonor supporting national far-right politics. According to OpenSecrets, he and his wife Elizabeth were among the biggest donors in the country during the 2024 election, having given $143 million exclusively to Republicans. He has helped fund the Voter Reference Foundation, an election conspiracy group helmed by former Trump campaign official and former Arizona GOP Chair Gina Swoboda.
Uihlein has also provided a large amount of funding to a SuperPAC affiliated with the American Principles Project, which spends millions of dollars pushing anti-trans attack ads in election years. The American Principles Project has been credited with helping to bring attacks on transgender rights into mainstream politics.
Similar initiatives exist in Arizona and Nevada as well. Nevada Gov. Joe Lombardo, a Republican, is leading a campaign for a trans sports ban initiative at both the student and adult levels. An associated committee, Protect Girls’ Sports PAC, was formed in January, and has not yet reported any contributions.
In Arizona last month, the Republican-dominated state Senate and House of Representatives referred a trans sports ban initiative to the ballot. Another measure that would ban trans students from using school bathrooms aligning with their gender was recently approved by a resolution of the state Senate, and will likely be sent to the ballot by the state House.
Uihlein is just one example of the numerous far-right megadonors who have played a pivotal role in propping up anti-trans policies across the country.
Another is hedge fund CEO Joseph Edelman, who gave $1 million to the anti-trans medical group Do No Harm after its founding in 2022. Do No Harm has been active in several states, including Colorado; last year, the group sued the University of Colorado medical school over a scholarship that was intended to benefit students from marginalized ethnic groups. Travis Morrell, founder of Colorado Principled Physicians and a senior fellow at Do No Harm, has been involved with Protect Kids Colorado throughout this round of the ballot initiative process, including speaking at some of the group’s events.
In Washington, another set of anti-trans ballot initiatives is being bankrolled primarily by millionaire hedge fund manager Brian Heywood.
In Colorado, billionaire Phil Anschutz came under scrutiny in 2017 for helping fund right-wing anti-LGBTQ groups like the Alliance Defending Freedom and Family Research Council. At the time, he denied allegations that he held any anti-LGBTQ sentiments. Anschutz is now rumored to covertly fund Colorado conservative politics writ large through a network of dark money groups, including Advance Colorado.
Though it lacked the funding to run a full professional signature-gathering campaign, Protect Kids Colorado still was able to hire Taylor Petition Management to collect some of their signatures. In total, they say they gathered over 170,000 signatures for initiatives #108 and #110, and over 164,000 for #109. The signatures for the three initiatives were submitted to the Secretary of State in late February, and will be verified within 30 days of submission.
