Protecting salmon or driving politics? SalmonState unmasked

By SUZANNE DOWNING

Salmon are woven into Alaska’s identity. They feed families, anchor local economies, and shape traditions that cut across politics, regions, and cultures. Alaskans don’t argue about whether salmon matter, because they do.

What has changed is how salmon are now being used as a political bludgeoning tool for the Left.

One of the most prominent players in that shift is the dark money group SalmonState. It brands itself as a grassroots coalition of fishermen, tribes, and rural Alaskans standing up for wild salmon. That image is powerful, and drives an emotional response.

What rarely gets mentioned is that SalmonState is not an independent Alaska organization at all. It operates as a project of the New Venture Fund, a Washington, DC–based nonprofit that is part of the massive Arabella Advisors dark-money network, now sneakily rebranded as Sunflower Services.

That structure matters. New Venture Fund is designed to act as a financial and legal umbrella for political advocacy projects across the country. It allows wealthy donors to move large sums of money into issue campaigns while remaining anonymous. SalmonState sits inside that same machinery. It is funded, housed, and managed through a national network created to advance progressive causes nationwide. Fish runs in Alaska are just one aspect of their broader agenda.

SalmonState is not alone. A growing web of Alaska-branded groups, including Progress Alaska, Stand Up Alaska, and others, operate through similar fiscal sponsorships and funding pipelines.

Research from the Alaska Influence Pipeline shows overlapping donors, consultants, and national intermediaries such as Arabella’s New Venture Fund, NEO Philanthropy, and the Tides Foundation. The labels vary — environmental, labor, community advocacy — but the funding architecture and political strategy are strikingly consistent.

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These groups almost never endorse candidates. They don’t have to as their mission is to target the issues that drive Alaska’s economy and its elections: mining, oil and gas, access roads, fisheries, infrastructure, election law, and regulatory authority. Their campaigns are built to shape public opinion, pressure lawmakers, and mobilize voters around those issues in ways that line up with national progressive priorities.

SalmonState’s own track record makes that clear. It has pushed to block the West Susitna and Ambler access roads, fought to keep the Roadless Rule in the Tongass, and opposed mining and energy projects across the state, and it’s all framed as salmon protection. Each of those campaigns carries enormous economic consequences for Alaska. Jobs, local revenue, and future development are all affected. These are not neutral educational efforts; they are political choices about how Alaska is allowed to grow.

That is why the money keeps flowing. SalmonState is effective at converting Alaskans’ deep attachment to salmon into policy outcomes that favor regulation, litigation, and federal control — a model that fits neatly within a national progressive agenda, even when it collides with local economic realities.

Much of this organizing is focused on rural and Indigenous communities, where environmental messaging is paired with voter engagement, coalition-building, and targeted outreach. On paper, the groups are nonprofits. In practice, they operate like sophisticated national issue-campaign machines, carefully designed to influence elections without ever filing as political committees.

Alaska’s small population makes it especially vulnerable to this kind of operation. A relatively modest amount of outside money, when paired with professional organizers and modern messaging, can shift public debate and ballot outcomes. That has already happened in recent elections and ballot initiatives. Anonymous donors and national networks now play an outsized role in shaping Alaska’s political future.

At the center of it all is the infrastructure. Arabella’s network, now operating under the Sunflower name, was built to move money quickly, quietly, and in no small amounts. The branding features salmon streams and local faces, but the funding and strategic direction often originate thousands of miles away. That lack of transparency is the point.

Real local empowerment doesn’t require routing Alaska issues through Washington, DC fiscal sponsors and national donor networks. When campaigns, messaging, and money all come from Outside, it’s fair to ask: Who is really setting the agenda?

None of this diminishes the importance of salmon or conservation. Those values unite Alaskans across every political segment. But when those shared priorities are turned into tools for national political campaigns built on dark money and hidden donors, every Alaskan should pay attention. We’re being played.

SalmonState and its allies have become powerful players in Alaska politics. Voters deserve to know who funds them, who directs them, and what their long-term goals are. Protecting salmon should bring Alaskans together. Using salmon as a vehicle for national political agendas risks dividing communities and reshaping Alaska in ways most people never voted for.

Suzanne Downing is founder and editor of The Alaska Story and is a longtime Alaskan.