NEWS
Eric Barlow wants Wyoming voters to believe he represents the Republican Party. But the voice speaking for his campaign belongs to a political operative whose organization accepted more than $650,000 from a national group run by veterans of Barack Obama’s political operation.
That is not a distant, six-degrees-of-separation association. Rebekah Fitzgerald is Barlow’s campaign spokeswoman and a paid consultant through Fitzgerald Strategies Group. She is also the leader of Wyoming FREE, the organization that accepted $651,668 from a far-left advocacy group called Article IV. Fitzgerald’s group then involved itself in the fight against conservatives in Wyoming’s 2026 Republican primary.
Fitzgerald is the direct link between Barlow’s campaign and a network of former Barack Obama campaign and administration officials. For a candidate claiming to be a Wyoming Republican, that connection deserves far more attention than it has received.
The person speaking for Barlow
Fitzgerald has served as Barlow’s public spokeswoman, responding to the press and defending his campaign. Barlow for Wyoming paid Fitzgerald Strategies Group LLC $22,500 in just over a month. She is not a politically neutral communications contractor.
Fitzgerald has also led Wyoming FREE, a 501(c)(4) organization that has pushed to alter Wyoming’s primary-election system. Its nonprofit filings identify Fitzgerald as a director. A November 2025 profile published by Unite America said Fitzgerald “leads” Wyoming FREE’s work. She also served as treasurer of the Wyoming Caucus PAC, the political organization created to oppose conservatives.
In other
words, the woman selected to speak for Wyoming’s Republican nominee for
governor was already a central figure in the organized campaign against
conservatives within the Wyoming Republican Party. During the 2024 legislative
session, Fitzgerald and fellow lobbyist JoAnn True were caught using legislative offices for political purposes; that’s a
violation of Wyoming Statute 9-13-105.
More than $650,000 from Article IV
Federal tax filings show that Article IV gave Wyoming FREE $200,834 in 2023. The following year, it gave the organization another $450,834. The combined total was $651,668.
Both payments were reported as grants for “general support.” They were not identified as money restricted to a narrow research project or a single educational program. Article IV was funding the operation itself.
For a young state-based nonprofit, $651,668 is massive funding. It is the kind of money that pays for staff, consultants, messaging, voter outreach, research, and political infrastructure. It is the money that allows an organization to become a serious player in state politics. And Article IV is not simply an anonymous national charity.
The Obama network behind the money
Article IV is headed by George “Tripp” Wellde III. Wellde served as Barack Obama’s Wisconsin state director during the 2012 presidential campaign. Campaign-history records also place him in Obama’s 2008 operation, including as Iowa field director. Article IV’s leadership includes other high-level Obama political veterans.
Awenate Cobbina, an Article IV director, spent nearly six years in the Obama White House, eventually serving as a special assistant and policy adviser to the president. Seth London, another Article IV director, is a former Obama-administration official and an adviser to major Democratic donors. Not every Article IV director worked on an Obama presidential campaign. But the organization is led by Obama’s former Wisconsin campaign director and governed in part by other former Obama White House and administration officials.
Those are the people whose organization supplied Fitzgerald’s Wyoming FREE with $651,668. Fitzgerald has financial ties to multiple high-level members of the Obama political network. Barlow then placed Fitzgerald as his spokeswoman.
National money turned against Wyoming conservatives
Wyoming FREE promotes itself as an election-integrity and voter-participation organization. Its political activity tells a more revealing story. While its front-facing advocacy purports to focus on open primaries and ranked choice voting, Wyoming FREE’s founders and officers--Fitzgerald, Shelly Duncan, and Dan Zwonitzer—have all publicly campaigned against conservatives.
Fitzgerald has argued that closed Republican primaries allow “extremists” to win. A profile celebrating her work complained about “partisan purity tests” and “punishing pragmatism.” Wyoming FREE’s website promoted a story titled “Concerns about the Wyoming Freedom Caucus.” Fitzgerald’s role as treasurer of the anti-conservative Wyoming Caucus PAC removed any remaining doubt about which Republican faction she opposed. Then came the 2026 primary.
Wyoming Secretary of State records show Wyoming FREE paid Election Hive, a Salt Lake City political firm, $29,975.41 for advertising on Aug. 3—just 15 days before the Republican primary. Election Hive describes its work as applying campaign strategy and data to help elect candidates.
Wyoming FREE’s record, Fitzgerald’s political roles, and the timing of the expenditure make the broader purpose clear: a group built with more than $650,000 from Article IV entered Wyoming’s Republican primary on the side opposing the state’s conservative movement. The Obama-connected money built political capacity for Wyoming FREE. It was then used against conservatives in the 2026 Primary Election.
Barlow’s Republican contradiction
Barlow won the 2026 Republican nomination for governor while campaigning as a Republican. He now asks conservative voters to help make him Wyoming’s next governor. Yet the person speaking for his campaign led an organization funded by people drawn from Obama’s campaign and White House. That same organization worked against conservative Republicans across Wyoming. The point is personnel, judgment, and political alignment.
Wyoming’s rejection of Obama was overwhelming. John McCain carried the state 64.4% to 32.4% in 2008. Mitt Romney defeated Obama in Wyoming 68.6% to 27.8% four years later. Obama lost the state by more than 32 percentage points in his first campaign and more than 40 points in his second. Against that political backdrop, Barlow’s staffing decision is extraordinary.
Barlow and Fitzgerald should answer several basic questions. Did Barlow know about the $651,668 from Article IV when he hired Fitzgerald? Did he know who ran Article IV? Did Fitzgerald remain involved with Wyoming FREE while speaking for his campaign? What communications did she have with Article IV’s leadership about Wyoming politics? And did any strategy, research, vendors, voter data, or personnel overlap among Wyoming FREE, the Wyoming Caucus PAC, and Barlow’s campaign?
Barlow calls himself a Republican. His spokeswoman led a group bankrolled by Obama political veterans. Raising over half of a million dollars from high profile former Barack Obama officials hardly fits on the resume of a conservative person working on a conservative campaign.