Cult roots and dark-money ties: Inside the political machine behind the 907 Initiative

By SUZANNE DOWNING

May 15, 2026 – The 907 Initiative has become one of the most aggressive outside political operations in Alaska, pouring more than a million dollars combined into attack campaigns aimed at Sen. Dan Sullivan for many months and now Congressman Nick Begich (the group reserved a $700,000 media ad buy for pre-primary negative messaging), while branding itself as a nonpartisan watchdog group focused on “transparency” and “accountability.”

Behind the organization is executive director and co-founder Aubrey Wieber, a former reporter for the Anchorage Daily News and former aide to Anchorage Assemblyman Chris Constant, a Democrat.

Wieber’s background has drawn renewed attention as the group ramps up digital advertising, opposition research, and messaging campaigns against Alaska Republicans ahead of the 2026 election cycle.

Public biographies and podcast interviews reveal that Wieber spent part of his youth involved in Ramtha’s School of Enlightenment, a controversial New Age movement founded by J.Z. Knight, who claims to channel a 35,000-year-old warrior spirit named Ramtha. The core philosophy of the cult is “You Are God.”

In promotional material for an April 2026 interview on the East Anchorage Book Club podcast, hosted by Rep. Andrew Gray,  Wieber openly described the experience as formative and referred to the organization as a cult. The podcast summary stated that the experience “dramatically altered” his youth.

That background is now bringing into focus how Wieber’s experience inside an ideological and spiritual movement explains the increasingly sophisticated political messaging coming from the 907 Initiative and its affiliated political arm, 907 Action.

Since its launch in 2022, the 907 Initiative has presented itself publicly as a civic watchdog organization devoted to transparency in government. But in practice, all of its major campaigns have a bullseye on conservatives, Republicans, oil-development advocates, or right-of-center policies in Alaska.

The group spent heavily attacking former Anchorage Mayor Dave Bronson during the 2023 and 2024 municipal election cycles, running messaging campaigns focused on alleged incompetence and mismanagement. Bronson ultimately lost reelection to a left-leaning coalition candidate backed by many of the same political interests aligned with the group.

The organization has also launched campaigns against the Alaska Industrial Development and Export Authority, Alaska resource-development projects, and Alaska’s congressional delegation. Among its projects are the websites “AKDelegationWatch.org” and “AIDEA Are Losers,” both aimed squarely at Republican officeholders and pro-development policies.

Federal campaign disclosures and nonprofit tracking organizations have linked the network to national progressive funding streams, including grants and support connected to the Tides Foundation, NEO Philanthropy, and the Western Futures Fund. The group is also associated with the ProgressNow network, a national alliance of left-leaning state advocacy organizations.

While the 907 Initiative insists it is issue-focused rather than partisan, the pattern is unmistakable: Republican targets, progressive policy priorities, and campaign-style messaging operations designed to shape public opinion parallel to traditional candidate campaigns. The 907 Initiative does the dirty work.

The scale of spending has become increasingly difficult to ignore. Combined attack advertising and messaging campaigns aimed at Sullivan and Begich has now exceeded $1 million, according to estimates from political analysts tracking Alaska media buys and digital placements.

Wieber has publicly maintained that the organization’s work centers on accountability and transparency. But the operation functions as a sophisticated progressive advocacy machine that leverages nonprofit structures and “watchdog” branding to influence elections and public perception while avoiding the direct label of partisan campaign organization.

The irony is difficult to miss: a movement built around narrative control and ideological reinforcement helped shape the worldview of a he/him/his individual who now runs one of Alaska’s most aggressive political messaging operations.

Financial disclosures and nonprofit trackers show the 907 Initiative is heavily supported by national progressive funding networks.

Major contributors during 2023 and 2024 included the Western Futures Fund, which gave at least $275,000 in 2023 and reportedly remained one of the group’s largest funders in 2024, along with NEO Philanthropy at $195,000 and the Tides Foundation at $100,000, with additional support continuing into 2024. Tides has long been associated with the broader Arabella Advisors influence network, now operating under the name Sunflower Services.

Additional funding came from Progress Alaska and the Alaska AFL-CIO. The organization launched in 2022 with roughly $341,000 in seed funding from undisclosed sources and has since seen rapid revenue growth, climbing from roughly $341,000 in 2022 to more than $794,000 by 2024, according to nonprofit filings. Portions of the funding structure is “dark money” because many contributions flow through donor-advised funds, fiscal sponsors, and nonprofit pass-through organizations that obscure the original source of the money.

The 907 Initiative appears to be masking funds for a national group called Unrig the Economy, which is running ads in other districts across the country. These dark money groups are afraid to be tagged with national groups, so they go under local-sounding names. It’s worth noting that “unrig” is one of the messages that Mary Peltola is using in her campaign against Sen. Dan Sullivan. This is ironic, since it was the Democrats who rigged the economy for fraud and rigged congressional districts for themselves for the past 40+ years.

Learn more about the 907 Initiative at AlaskaInfluencePipeline.com.