Hijacking Campaign 2022 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2022
Posted: April 12, 2022
Updated: March 22, 2024
This is a newly created Super PAC registered to make independent expenditures in Wisconsin on behalf of GOP candidate for governor Kevin Nicholson in the 2022 election.
Fighting for Wisconsin, which has an Austin, Tex. post office box for an address but is soley funded by Illinois based Uline founder Richard Uihlein, sponsored a television ad praising Nicholson from mid-March through early April 2022. In late May, the group released a second television ad narrated by former rightwing Milwaukee County Sheriff David Clarke Jr., who praised Nicholson as someone who gets things done.
An early review of television advertising purchases by the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign showed the group had spent or reserved $2.68 million in ads throughout the state from mid-March through early August.
The group filed it's first offical spending report with the State Ethics Commission on June 23 showing it had spent $925,000 on media costs in support of Nicholson. June 10 was the earliest date it was required to file such reports.
Later in July it reported it had spent about another $48,000 on television advertisements to support Nicholson on July 8, three days after Nicholson announced he was suspending his campaign.
In mid-July, the group reported that between mid-March and July it had spent over $4.3 million, largely on television ads, to support Nicholson's abortive campaign for governor.
The group’s treasurer is listed as Moses Ayala, a former lawyer for the Republican Governors Association.
This organization is registered with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission as an independent expenditure committee following the January 2010 U.S. Supreme Court ruling in Citizens United v. FEC.