Hijacking Campaign 2022 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2022
Posted: June 17, 2022
Updated: March 22, 2024
The New Prosperity Foundation, based in Chicago, was organized in March 2021 as a SuperPAC to make independent expenditures on behalf of candidates, but is not registered with the Wisconsin State Ethics Commission and is not, therefore, legally obligated to report any financial activity in Wisconsin beyond independent expenditures.
In mid-June 2022, the foundation filed paperwork with the state of Wisconsin showing it spent $95,000 on online advertising to support GOP candidate for governor Tim Michels. Michels was among five Republican candidates in the Aug. 9 primary. Michels won the primary and faced incumbent Democratic Gov. Tony Evers in the November general election.
A week before the primary, the committee reported spending about $17,000 more on digital ads to oppose former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in the Republican primary.
The foundation’s website says it supports spending and tax reform, the controversial 2018 Republican tax cuts, and including fossil fuels as part of the nation’s energy program.
The organization was active in 2010 as a 527 group, which are organizations loosely regulated by the U.S. Internal Revenue Service that can raise and spend unlimited amounts from any source to spend on elections. At the time, the group spent $17,000 as a state-registered independent expenditure committee to support then-GOP Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen for reelection. Until 2016, committees were not legally permitted to make independent expenditures in Wisconsin elections without first registering with the state.
In late September New Prosperity Foundation also reported spending in the fall election through that same state-registered committee.
Last active election (as a registered committee): 2010
This organization is an unregistered independent expenditure committee that is required to report any such spending done within 60 days of a primary or an election to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission per Chapter 11, Subchapter X of Wisconsin Statutes.