Tyler Clark, Nikki Haley’s current New Hampshire state director for her presidential campaign, worked as a lobbyist for Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2020, a Democratic dark money organization.
Sixteen Thirty Fund, managed by the largest liberal dark money network in the United States, Arabella Advisors, spent more than $410 million in 2020 to help unseat former President Donald Trump and boost Democrats, thanks to billionaire donors such as George Soros.
Clark had previously worked for the super PAC Trust in the Mission and lobbied for New Hampshire’s chapters of the American Civil Liberties Union and American Federation of Teachers, two groups often criticized by conservatives for purportedly being arms of the Democratic Party. Clark’s prior clients through Preti Strategies, where he worked until June 2023 as a public and government affairs adviser, are likely to bolster concerns among conservatives that Haley may be too “establishment.”
Hayden Ludwig, policy research director for Restoration of America, a conservative advocacy group, stated that “Clearly, when Nikki Haley looks for talent, she turns to the Swamp and the Democrat Party’s guns-for-hire, not genuine conservatives.” Ludwig criticized the Sixteen Thirty Fund-run “dark money” and the “diversity, equity, and inclusion-obsessed” teachers union that wants the government to raise all children. Clark personally signed disclosures required to “swear or affirm that the foregoing information is true and complete to the best of my knowledge and belief.”
Nikki Haley elevated Clark to state director for New Hampshire after the campaign and then-state director Mak Kehoe for New Hampshire parted ways in early December 2023. Clark, who graduated from the University of New Hampshire, joined Preti Strategies in 2019 after working as a government relations adviser for the firm Dennehy & Bouley, whose clients have ranged from major corporations, including Oracle, Xerox, and Lockheed Martin, to trade groups.
Clark is listed along with lobbyists Peter Bragdon, Andrew Hosmar, and Lucas Meyer on New Hampshire lobbying filings for Sixteen Thirty Fund in April 2020 and January 2021. Sixteen Thirty Fund received $15,000 for the period, according to the April 2020 filings, while the organization gathered $390 million in 2020, half of which came from four donors combined. The Soros-led Open Society Foundations grantmaking network donated roughly $17 million to Sixteen Thirty Fund in 2020.
