The campaign to defeat the proposed Eugene Clean Energy Fund has seen a surge in fundraising in the final weeks before the election.

But opponents are still lagging far behind supporters, who’ve gathered more than $700,000 so far.

Measure 20-388 would collect a percentage of corporate retail profits to create a new fund for climate projects. It qualified for the ballot through a successful petition campaign earlier this year.

The proposal has drawn debate over how the fund would be managed and whether large companies would pass the fee down onto customers. The Stop the Hidden Tax on Eugene campaign is trying to convince voters to reject the measure.

As of Tuesday, the campaign had reported more than $130,000 in fundraising, with five-figure donations from the Oregon Business & Industry Issues and Grocery Retail PACs. That’s more than five times the amount of money it had reported early this month.

It’s spent more than half of the money so far on a Salem-based marketing firm called Rushlight.

One of the materials the campaign is distributing is a letter from Laura Sedwick, a volunteer for the campaign and a Eugene resident. She wrote that the initiative is a “blank check with no accountability.”

A Stop the Hidden Tax representative shared a copy of the mailer with KLCC.

“If you’re willing, talk to a few neighbors,” Sedwick wrote to voters. “Most people haven’t heard what’s in this measure yet, and once they do, they vote no.”

Meanwhile, as of Tuesday, supporters of the initiative had reported raising more than $727,000, counting both their petition and ballot campaigns.

This includes six-figure donations from the Oregon League of Conservation Voters and the Breach Collective, an Oregon-based nonprofit.

“There’s a huge mix of folks supporting the Eugene Clean Energy Fund,” said Aya Cockram, the initiative’s co-chief petitioner and Oregon Energy Transition Organizer with the Breach Collective. “It’s national philanthropists and advocate groups that want to see this pass, as well as a huge number of local folks who are just really excited.”

Supporters have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on the progressive advertising agency Untidy Origins and the campaign strategy firm The Pivot Group.

Eugene residents have received messages from local business owners who support the initiative. And one video ad tells viewers that the measure would “make billion-dollar corporations pay their fair share.”

Dylan Plummer, a campaign advisor for the Sierra Club and Breach Collective co-founder, said the campaign had also knocked on more than 17,300 doors and sent more than 90,000 texts as of Monday.

On Tuesday, the campaign announced that it had reached a tentative union deal with its campaign staff, including paid canvassers. It claimed this was the first union of its kind in the country.

Plummer said the campaign had expected big businesses to spend more to fight the ballot measure than they actually have so far. But he said supporters are staying on guard in the final days before the election.

“Our organizations have been working on crafting the initiative and planning this campaign for a number of years,” Plummer said. “And in that time, we’ve been building up our war chest so that we have the funds to make sure that this campaign is successful.”

Oregon campaign finance laws don’t require campaigns to report contributions immediately, so the actual total funds each side has raised could be higher.

Earlier this month, the supporters accused Stop the Hidden Tax of Eugene of failing to disclose two campaign contributions by the required filing deadlines, together totaling $40,000.

Those contributions are now shown on Oregon’s online public records system, and the campaign lists them as having been filed within the deadlines. But the transaction dates differ between the contributors’ filings and the campaign’s.

In a complaint to the state elections division, the supporters said it was implausible that the campaign was not aware of these transitions earlier, and the state should impose penalties.

In an email to KLCC, the Stop the Hidden Tax on Eugene said the campaign had followed the law to the letter.

“It is a common political tactic to file frivolous campaign finance allegations,” wrote the campaign.

Nathan Wilk is a reporter with the KLCC newsroom. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.

It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.

News Source : https://www.opb.org/article/2026/10/28/eugene-clean-energy-fund-uptick-fundraising-lags-behind-support/