Hijacking Campaign 2022 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2022
Posted: August 25, 2022
Updated: March 22, 2024
This independent expenditure committee, which has a Monona address, was created to support Democratic and left-leaning candidates for statewide office and the legislature. The committee's sponsoring organization, A Better Wisconsin Together, has also run issue ads in the 2022 election.
A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund was active in the 2020 spring and fall elections and the 2021 spring races where it spent about $4.7 million to support Democratic and left-leaning candidates for statewide office and the legislature. It quickly became one of the top-spending outside electioneering groups in Wisconsin.
Most of the group’s contributions came from labor union political action committees (PACs) and corporations, and Democratic ideological groups.
In mid-August, the group first sponsored a 30-second television ad that criticized GOP candidate for governor Tim Michels because he supports an 1849 state law that made abortions illegal, even in cases of rape and incest.
In mid-September, A Better Wisconsin Together sponsored a 30-second television ad that criticized Michels for opposing abortion in cases of rape and incest and for supporting anti-abortion groups that oppose birth control and abortion to save the life of the mother with his family foundation. The group also sponsored a 15-second digital ad that called Michels "radical" for opposing red flag laws that would prohibit domestic abusers from buying guns.
Towards the end of the first week in October, the committee reported spending nearly $812,000 for television and online advertising in the governor's race as well as six state senate and 17 state assembly races.
Four weeks before the November 8 election, A Better Wisconsin reported spending nearly $26,000 on online advertising to oppose Scott Soik in the 71st Assembly District. Soik faced five-term Democratic incumbent Katrina Shankland.
Less than four weeks before the November 8 election, the committee reported spending another $11,785 for online advertising against Soik plus $20,750 for online ads to oppose Republican Jeff Klett in the open 45th Assembly District. The committee also reported its first spending in the attorney general's race with $400,000 on TV ads against GOP Fond du Lac County District Attorney Eric Toney, who was challenging Democratic incumbent Attorney General Josh Kaul. The group's ad claimed a child abuser got off without prison time and a nine-time felon was released from jail and later murdered a firefighter in two cases that Toney handled as a county prosecutor.
Three weeks before the November election, A Better Wisconsin reported spending $88,000 for online advertisements opposing the GOP candidates in the 45th, 71st and 84th assembly districts. Two weeks before the election, the committee reported spending over $178,000 for online advertising against the Republican candidates in the governor's race and those same three legislative districts.
Eight days before the election, A Betrter Wisconsin reported spending over $2.57 million for online advertising in the governor's race and several legislative elections.
A week before the election, it reported an additional $100,000 for online advertisements to support Evers.
A day before the election, the committee reported spending $110,000 for phone calls opposing Michels.
*The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign found $1,865,000 of this spending in the committee's campaign finance report filed on September 27, 2022. That spending was never officially reported as independent expenditures by the committee.
Last active election: 2021
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.