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Capital Cash is a series by The Plains Sentinel investigating the intersection of money, influence, and politics in Nebraska, bringing readers stories on some of the most powerful figures and biggest donors in our state who have typically not seen the type of scrutiny from other outlets.
The phenomenon of “dark” and “outside” money is increasingly an unavoidable fact of American politics. While “outside” money categorizes all expenses within a race that do not come from authorized campaign committees, “dark” money captures what much of the outside money is: a near-impossible-to-trace web of interested dollars routed from charitable and social welfare organizations to pop-up PACs with nominal ties to the election’s location, be it Nebraska or anywhere else.
In the case of Nebraska’s hotly contested Senate race between Independent challenger Dan Osborn and GOP incumbent Pete Ricketts, the two candidate committees have raised slightly over $23 million combined, and spent slightly less than that.
Outside money in the race exceeds $40 million, much of which can be safely termed “dark money.”
Osborn has commonly lamented the cost to run for office and the breadth of outside spending in important races, and has repeatedly told audiences to disregard all advertisements that do not carry either his or his opponent’s explicit endorsements. In a recent TV hit with MSNOW, he called dark money “disgusting.”
Despite his stated anger, more outside money – almost all of it dark – has been spent to his benefit than to Ricketts’. According to latest VoteLog numbers, Osborn is reinforced with $22 million of outside money, including the largest single spenders, which are the newfangled Nebraska Values PAC and Working Class Majority PAC, Inc. Reported expenses total $9.3 million and $7.8 million respectively, both opposing Ricketts.
The largest outside spender in Nebraska’s 2024 race also favored Osborn. The organization was called “Retire Career Politicians,” and according to its filings, it could well have dropped the s, as it targeted only a single politician, that being Deb Fischer.
Aside from benefitting Osborn, Nebraska Values and Working Class Majority also share a support network with Retire Career Politicians – one which traces back to a 501(c)4 based in Sheridan, Wyoming called the Western Futures Fund, along with two out-of-state PACs called Way Back PAC and Government That Works PAC.
That network is the accomplishment of Jonah Meyers, a Maryland-based former director at the enormous, nominally dissolved DC dark money network Arabella Advisors, a significant player in a recent state-level lawsuit from Nebraska Attorney General Mike Hilgers.
Arabella Fingerprints Coat Nebraska Dark Money
In November of 2025, state Attorney General Mike Hilgers announced a lawsuit against Swiss billionaire Hansjörg Wyss and six different nonprofits within his vast financial network.
Wyss is a foreign national who currently resides in Wyoming. He is co-owner of English Football Club Chelsea and a longtime “Mega Influence” in American politics through an array of colossal nonprofits. In the aftermath of George Soros resigning his influence to the hands of his son Alex, Both Bloomberg and Fortune reported that conservative watchdog groups labeled Wyss “the new Soros.”
Hilgers’ suit chiefly alleges that Wyss indirectly contributed to Nebraska ballot question committees in 2024, which is explicitly prohibited for foreign nationals by Nebraska law.
The complaint cites 2023 Associated Press reporting that Wyss uses his two primary fixtures, the Wyss Foundation and Berger Action Fund, “to direct hundreds of millions of dollars into a complex network of politically active ‘dark money’ nonprofit organizations.”
Four such nonprofit organizations: the New Venture Fund, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, the Hopewell Fund, and the Fairness Project, made direct contributions to one or multiple ballot question committees in Nebraska’s 2024-2025 election cycle. As such, they are co-defendants in the case.
Arabella Advisors administered for three of the four.
Additionally named in the suit – though not accused – are four Nebraska-based nonprofits who received co-defendant funding and made donations to ballot question committees. As such, total Wyss-traceable donations were at least $10 million.
And perhaps more.
A Plains Sentinel investigation has identified the Western Futures Fund, the Wyoming-based 501(c)4 founded by Jonah Meyers, as yet another link in the chain.
The Western Futures Fund: Arabella Tactics in Rural America
As is common in dark money operations across the political spectrum, the Western Futures Fund is structured as a 501(c)4, and is thus not obligated to disclose its funding sources – only its total receipts each fiscal year. In 2024, it listed $8.7 million in revenue.
501(c)4 organizations are, however, required to disclose grants and assistance. Arabella’s aforementioned Sixteen Thirty Fund is a colossal 501(c)4 that receives upwards of $280 million per year. It was administered by Arabella Advisors until Arabella disbanded and rebranded in 2025.
Alongside hundreds of others of its grant and assistance-receiving organizations, Sixteen Thirty lists the Western Futures Fund. It gave the Wyoming nonprofit $2.75 million in 2024, meaning it accounted for well over one quarter the Wyoming nonprofit’s total funding.
That same year, Western Futures gave $200,000 to NMM, “Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana,” which was a registered ballot question committee at the time. The listed address for NMM corresponds to the same address of at least three other nonprofits affiliated with Katie Weitz, the daughter of NU Regent Barbara Weitz, and former Nebraska State Senator Adam Morfeld.
NMM has maintained lobbying activities since its initiatives passed in 2024. Its total receipts that year were just below $1 million, $200,000 of which the attorney general’s office has already traced to the Wyss network.
NMM’s multi-nonprofit address is a common practice for affiliated political organizations and especially for dark money operations. Working Class Majority PAC shares a Delaware address and suite with Civic Truth Coalition, another Arabella/Sixteen Thirty group that backed Osborn in 2024.
Western Futures shares the same Wyoming address with thousands of other businesses and organizations – notably the Way Back PAC, with whom it also shares its founder: the aforementioned Jonah Meyers.
Western Futures is Way Back PAC’s largest individual donor, with FEC data listing total contributions of $1.2 million in 2026. Other notable donors include Regan Pritzker whose father was chairman and CEO of Hyatt Hotels, Bill Gates’ son Rory John Gates, and Galaxy CEO Michael Novogratz.
The two organizations together, along with Government That Works PAC – which Meyers’ Blue Moon Strategies consults for – accounted for $7.4 million in donations to the two PACs attacking Ricketts. That does not yet include the month of October.
While a Senator Osborn is an evident a priority for Way Back, it and the broader Arabella network are also keenly focused on local Nebraska races. In direct expenses during the 2025-2026 cycle, Way Back has spent almost $1.5 million of its $9.7 million total disbursements on Nebraska. Additional states of interest include Montana, Wyoming, Idaho, Utah, Iowa, and both Dakotas.
Way Back’s primary target was actually the very state senator who introduced the legislation under which Hansjörg Wyss and his network are currently being sued: Omaha Democratic State Senator John Cavanaugh.
Way Back Funds Attack Ads on Omaha Senator
Just under half of Way Back PAC’s directly-donated Nebraska money consists in campaign contributions. These included $300,000 for Lynne Walz, $125,000 for Omaha Mayor John Ewing, and $10,000 donations to virtually every competitive Democrat in Unicameral races. Additional sums went to Dan Osborn and three Lincoln City Council races.
The other $755,000 was donated to Fight For Nebraska PAC, the Western Futures-backed Super PAC formed to assist Denise Powell in her primary campaign for Congress. This accounted for one third of the Super PAC’s total funds.
As reported by Nebraska Public Media in April, Fight for Nebraska then spent over $1.2 million in TV and digital ad expenditures, evenly split between support ads for Powell and attack ads on her Democratic primary opponent. In the end, Fight for Nebraska would spend $2 million total to help Powell beat her opponent, State Senator John Cavanaugh.
It was Cavanaugh who introduced the Nebraska statute that barred foreign nationals from contributing to ballot question committees – the same statute by which Hilgers is suing Wyss and his network.
The text of the lawsuit notes that in 2021, the Federal Election Committee reversed its prior ban on foreign nationals contributing to state ballot initiatives. FEC Commissioner Ellen Weintraub, who opposed the ruling, issued a public call to pass state-level restrictions on the practice.
The lawsuit states:
“Senator John Cavanaugh introduced legislation to ‘prohibit foreign nationals from contributing to ballot question committees.’ He explained that the proposal ‘simply adds a prohibition in state law that no longer exists in federal law because of the FEC ruling.’”
It became Nebraska law in 2022.
And the reality of the dark money opposition to Cavanaugh was a key point in his run. A campaign ad with Cavanaugh’s endorsement referenced Hilgers’ lawsuit, observing Powell’s consulting connections to the Arabella-administered Sixteen Thirty and New Ventures Funds.
It also called her by the nickname pro-GOP ads now use: “Dark Money Denise.”
Conservation the Arabella Way
In addition to its involvement with statewide, congressional, and legislative races, the Arabella network has direct ties in attempting to influence energy and county board races across Nebraska.
Arabella Advisors founder Eric Kessler came to the organization by way of the League of Conservation Voters (LCV), an environmental-justice-based nonprofit. Its website professes aims of protecting “people, our democracy, and our planet” and a commitment to equality and racial justice by fighting “systemic and structural racism” and “interlocking systems of oppression.”
A dive into IRS filings shows that LCV is among the Arabella/Wyss network’s favorite grantees. In fact, LCV was the Sixteen Thirty Fund’s second-largest in 2024, receiving $11.8 million. It also received support from a step higher on the Wyss ladder via a $2 million donation from Berger Action, which has direct ties to Wyss’s personal family foundation.
The League’s Victory Fund, which accounts for 80% of its disbursements and boasts additional direct support from Sixteen Thirty, is the driving force behind Nebraska’s conservation wing, which consists of 501(c)3 Conservation Nebraska, its affiliated 501(c)4 Nebraska Conservation Voters (NECV), and their political action committee, Conservation PAC.
NECV and Conservation Nebraska have identical logos and identical Lincoln and Omaha office locations. Both organizations list Sandhills Energy President Eric Johnson as treasurer and State Senator Eliot Bostar has served as executive director for both groups. Although NECV receives support from Sixteen Thirty directly and Conservation Nebraska receives funding from the League of Conservation Voters’ Education Fund, their direct influence is minimal in Nebraska politics.
Their political teeth come from Conservation PAC, for which NECV political director Matthew Barrow serves as treasurer. It received $850,000 from the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund in 2024, and $1.35 million in 2026. These accounted for 97% of its total support.
The PAC’s primary objective in 2026 appears to be the same as in 2024: securing progressive control on the board of the Omaha Public Power District. To date, it has given a total of $148,000 to Carol Blood, Mark Gudgel, Joseph Giitter, and Sara Kohen as they run for the board of directors – this is still a far cry from the $264,000 it spent backing Morgan Rye-Craft in 2024.
Its largest individual recipient, however, remains the Nebraska Democratic Party, to whom it gave $265,000 in 2024 and $70,000 thus far in 2026.
It also spent $100,000 in 2024 on behalf of Democrats in Lancaster County Board of Commissioners races. In 2026, it has focused supplementary efforts on city council races in Grand Island and Hastings.
NADC reports show that the PAC still has over $1 million in cash on hand.
Arabella Has ‘Unique’ Interest in Nebraska
Parker Thayer, a researcher at the conservative watchdog group Capital Research Center, told The Plains Sentinel that Nebraska has long been an “object of fascination” for the Arabella network.
He cited the state’s electoral system, which splits up presidential electors based on congressional districts, and the network’s connections to foundations operated by members of Warren Buffett’s family. The Buffett family foundations have given nearly $150,000,000 over the past decade to the Hopewell Fund, which helps start and fund left-wing nonprofits across the country.
The Hopewell Fund gave over $1.3 million for the 2024 Nebraskans for Reproductive Freedom constitutional amendment effort as well as funding to the 2024 Support our Schools, which pushed the referendum to repeal school choice in Nebraska. The group has also given grants to OpenSky Policy Institute and Civic Nebraska.
Thayer said he expects the Arabella network will only continue to give large chunks of money in Nebraska.
“[Arabella] does have and has long had a kind of unique interest in Nebraska,” Thayer said, noting that Nebraska was its favorite Republican-controlled state to spend money in. “Arabella has given its heart and its checkbook for Nebraska.”
— Lewis Thune is a College Fix writing fellow with The Plains Sentinel.