Virginia-based Americans For Prosperity spent over $100,000 to help Kellie Warren beat Sen. John Skubal in the 2020 Republican primary - because Skubal didn’t vote for vouchers and cuts to public school funding. Skubal voted for BV kids. Since AFP is all about FOR-PROFIT privatization of public services and tax cuts for their billionaire backers, legislators who vote for public education stand in their way.
Now AFP is back for more.
We reviewed AFP’s campaign finance filings for the period ending July 25, 2024. That’s all the information available to-date, and it covers only the first part of the 2024 primary election reporting. (Remember: AFP isn’t required to disclose their actual funders - that’s why their spending is called “dark money.”)
Here’s how much AFP declared spending on Blue Valley-area candidates (none of whom had a primary challenger) just through July 25. Wow. This is a LOT of dark money flowing into Blue Valley MONTHS before the general election.
TJ Rose in Senate District 35: $21,346
Kellie Warren in Senate District 11: $17,855
Carl Turner in House District 28: $3559
Based on the current avalanche of postcards, texts, literature drops, and other campaign tactics, we’re estimating over $100,000 in AFP dark money spent on some INDIVIDUAL races in Blue Valley alone. That’s HUNDREDS of thousands of dollars to try and sway Blue Valley voters to elect voucher supporting, anti-tax, anti-government legislators.
We’ll watch for the next campaign finance filing from AFP, but no one will know how much they’ve spent in total until well after the election is over.
Why is AFP spending SO MUCH in Blue Valley? They’re desperate to keep the Republican supermajority in both chambers, so legislators can override Gov. Kelly’s vetoes of their bad bills. Without a supermajority in both chambers, they won’t get voucher expansion benefitting for-profit schools and drastic, Brownback-like tax cuts.
Remember: AFP doesn’t care about OUR taxes. They don’t care about OUR kids, OUR schools, or OUR community. They don’t even live here! Candidates supported by AFP will NOT vote for Blue Valley. We’ve advised voters to put the AFP mailers in the trash - after making a note of who they support and therefore who NOT to vote for.
Read campaign finance filings here:
Read more about AFP on our website Blog:
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