Hijacking Campaign 2022 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2022
Posted: July 7, 2022
Updated: April 9, 2025
Freedom Wisconsin PAC, based in Middleton, is registered to make independent expenditures in Wisconsin and was created to support GOP candidate for governor Rebecca Kleefisch.
In 2021, the group reported raising $277,000 from just three contributors. Billionaire GOP megadonor Elizabeth Uihlein contributed $200,000 to Freedom Wisconsin last October. She contributed $1.5 million out of the $2.88 million the committee raised by the time it closed operations in January 2023, making her the single largest contributor to the committee.
Uihlein and her husband, Richard, of Lake Forest, Ill., founded Uiline, a shipping supply company. The Uihleins are among the leading contributors to GOP and conservative state and federal candidates and causes throughout the country.
In early July, the group reported first reported spending $303,000 on advertisements to oppose GOP candidate for governor Tim Michels. Subsequently the group reported spending another half a million dollars on television advertising to oppose his campaign. Before Michels entered the race, the group had already spent over $150,000 on radio advertisements to support former Lieutenant Governor Rebecca Kleefisch in the Republican primary. That activity was not reported until mid-July.
Although the committee ended up spending over $2.5 million for television and radio ads to oppose Michels, he won the primary but lost the general election to Gov. Tony Evers.
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.