Hijacking Campaign 2023 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Campaign 2023
Posted: March 15, 2023
Updated: March 26, 2024
Spring: Oath • Spending
Special: Oath • Spending
Based in Shorewood, WI, Power to the Polls Action Fund first registered with the state to make independent expenditures in the 2023 spring and special elections at the end of February of that year. A similarly named organization, with the same address, was active in the fall 2022 election as an unregistered committee, a committee whose website seems to be defunct when this was first posted. Power to the Polls Action Fund's treasurer is listed as Calena Roberts. A Calena Roberts was identified as a field director for the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in a number of news articles covering the 2022 elections. The SEIU has long been a major presence in Wisconsin state politics.
Supreme Court (Spring)
At the time of the election, conservatives enjoyed a 4-3 advantage on the officially nonpartisan Wisconsin State Supreme Court, an advantage up for grabs with the retirement of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack.
The Feb. 21 primary winnowed a field of four candidates - two conservatives and two liberals - down to two who faced each other in the April 4 general election: Former Wisconsin State Supreme Court Daniel Kelly, a conservative 2016 appointee of former GOP Gov. Scott Walker voted off the court in a 2020 election, and Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge Janet Protasiewicz, the remaining liberal.
Protasiewicz won the election and shifted the ideological balance of the high court when she took her seat the following August.
Power to the Polls reported spending nearly half a million dollars for mailers, canvassing and online and radio advertising to support Protasiewicz.
Special
A special election to fill a vacancy in suburban Milwaukee's 8th State Senate District was held concurrently with the court race. The seat was left vacant when long-time Republican Sen. Albert Darling retired in December 2022. GOP Rep. Dan Knodl, of Germantown defeated political newcomer and attorney Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin in the April 4 election.
Power to the Polls reported spending over $17,300 to support Habush Sinykin.
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.