INVESTIGATIVE REPORT
The Machine Behind the Ballot: How Advance Colorado Shapes State Politics
Two years of investigation and thousands of tax documents reveal a coordinated network of think tanks, media outlets, and advocacy groups — all working together to turn billionaire wish lists and conservative policy into Colorado law.
By Logan M. Davis
Over half of the initiatives potentially slated for the 2026 Colorado ballot have been spawned by a single dark money organization: Advance Colorado, the state’s best-funded conservative political group.
What is Advance Colorado’s 2026 ballot agenda?
Advance Colorado has sponsored 21 ballot initiatives for 2026 that aim to:
Increase criminal sentences and expand ICE power
Block clean energy policy to align with fossil fuel interests
Cut taxes for the state's wealthiest residents
Who is Advance Colorado?
Advance Colorado was founded in 2020 with backing from Colorado Governor Bill Owens and real estate developer Terry Considine, after the Colorado Republican Party lost its grip on state government. Rather than win elections, the group found a different path to power: Bypass the legislature entirely and write laws directly through the ballot initiative process.
Unlike grassroots campaigns that rely on volunteers, Advance Colorado spends millions hiring professional signature collectors. Under the leadership of conservative strategist Michael Fields, the group has extracted tax cuts from a Democrat-controlled legislature, killed initiatives it opposed, and passed ones it supported — all while keeping its donors hidden.
But they don’t operate alone.
Two years of investigation and thousands of tax documents reveal that Advance Colorado is the central cog in a network of think tanks, media outlets, and advocacy organizations coordinated to transform donor wish lists into Colorado law. That network includes:
Advocacy groups like Ready Colorado and Colorado Dawn
Political committees that move money directly to political causes
The Common Sense Institute, a think tank that exists to smuggle billionaire-friendly ideas into the mainstream media
Three Colorado news outlets owned by billionaire Phil Anschutz — the Colorado Springs and Denver Gazettes, and Colorado Politics — whose job is to make sure those ideas reach you
The Advance Colorado network exists to convince voters to vote against their own best interests, and in the best interests of its billionaire donors.
The machine: How a billionaire's wish list becomes Colorado law
When you search for a Colorado ballot initiative online, you might find news coverage, think tank research, and newspaper editorials all pointing in the same direction.
What looks like widespread agreement is actually something far more insidious — a three-part system purpose-built to make a conservative dark money agenda look like “common sense.”
STEP 1:
Advance Colorado creates the initiative.
The group drafts the ballot measure, hires paid signature collectors to get it on the ballot, and runs the campaign to pass it.
While grassroots organizations rely on volunteers, Advance Colorado spends millions of dollars to move its agenda forward — and the donors funding that spending never have to put their names on it.
STEP 2: The Common Sense Institute validates it.
The Common Sense Institute is a think tank — or at least, it looks like one. In reality, it's directly funded by Advance Colorado and shares many of the same donors. Its job is to produce academic-looking reports that support whatever Advance Colorado is pushing in order to smuggle billionaire-friendly ideas into the mainstream media.
STEP 3:
Phil Anschutz's newspapers make it look like news.
Phil Anschutz is the wealthiest man in Colorado. He also owns three of the state's news outlets: the Denver Gazette, the Colorado Springs Gazette, and Colorado Politics.
Across more than 12,000 outlets, Anschutz’s three outlets account for 40% of all press coverage of the Common Sense Institute. And they consistently editorialize in support of the same ballot initiatives that Advance Colorado backs.
By the time the ballot arrives in your mailbox, the campaign to shape your vote is already over.
The money trail: How billionaire cash moves through Colorado politics in the shadows
Here's what two years of IRS documents actually show.
Phil Anschutz — Colorado's wealthiest man — gives money to a nonprofit called High Hopes Colorado.
High Hopes Colorado gives that money to Advance Colorado.
Advance Colorado takes some of that money and gives it directly to the Common Sense Institute, the think tank that produces the research validating Advance Colorado's ballot initiatives.
Meanwhile, Anschutz owns the three newspapers that cover that research as though it were independent.
And High Hopes is just one pass-through. The Colorado Opportunity Foundation gave the Common Sense Institute more than $1 million over five years — while simultaneously funneling millions more to Advance Colorado. The Walton Family Foundation, the Adolph Coors Foundation, and Phil Anschutz's own family foundations have all contributed to multiple organizations in this network at the same time.
This is how dark money works. Rather than writing checks directly to ballot campaigns, donors write checks to foundations, which write checks to nonprofits, which write checks to advocacy groups.
With the use of intermediary groups, Advance Colorado is able to fund and sustain coordinated activity across policy, media, and political campaigns — all while obscuring the identities of the donors behind it.
