Hijacking Campaign 2024 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2024
Posted: July 9, 2024
Updated: October 6, 2025
This is a group created in 2003 by David and Charles Koch, the billionaire owners of Koch Industries and Wisconsin-based papermaker Georgia-Pacific. Americans for Prosperity first got involved in Wisconsin state politics through the medium of "issue ads" in 2006 and first reporting independent expenditures in 2018. Between 2010 and 2023 the group spent over $21.3 million on issue ads and independent expenditures combined to influence Wisconsin state elections, placing it among the top interest group spenders in state elections during that time period.
A week into July the group filed its first report of independent expenditures for the fall state legislative elections indicating it had spent over $46,200 for canvassing and campaign literature to support GOP Sen. Duey Stroebel in the 8th State Senate District. Stroebel represented the 20th Senate since 2015 but was moved into the 8th Senate with the passage of Gov. Tony Evers's legislative maps earlier in 2024. The incumbent in the 8th, Republican Sen. Dan Knodl, was first elected to that office in a 2023 special election but chose to run for the State Assembly rather than contest the seat in a primary against his more senior senate colleague. Stroebel was unopposed in the primary and faced Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin, also unopposed in her primary, in the November election. Habush Sinykin lost to Knodl in the 2023 special election but won election this time around.
In mid-July Americans for Prosperity reported spending another $5,100 for online advertising in two August Republican primaries. In each primary, two then-current GOP incumbents faced each other due to redistricting: Knodl and Rep. Janel Brandtjen ran against each other in the 24th State Assembly, a district new to both of them, and the 55th Assembly where first-term incumbent Rep. Nate Gustafson was challenged by Rep. Michael Schraa, a six-term incumbent formerly of the 53rd. The group favored Knodl and Gustafson, each of whom won their respective primaries and went on to win in November.
The group subsequently reported spending on behalf of Lori Voss in the 69th Assembly Republican primary. Voss was running against first-term incumbent Rep. Karen Hurd, then serving the 68th but yet another GOP incumbent displaced by new district maps. Hurd went on to win the November election.
By the time of the August 13th primaries, the group had reported spending over $180,500 on mailers, canvassing and digital ads in the four aforementioned races with about a third of that going to the primary contests. Voss was the only one of the committee's favored candidates who lost in the primaries.
By the end of the elections in November the group had reported spending a total of more than $633,600 across eleven state assembly - the 5th, 24th, 30th, 38th, 49th, 55th, 69th, 88th, 89th, 91st, and 92nd - and three state senate races, the 8th, 10th and the 30th. Eight of its favored assembly candidates - in the 5th, 24th, 30th, 38th, 49th, 55th, 88th, and 92nd - and one state senate candidate, incumbent Rob Stafsholt, won.
(The committee attributed some of its spending to support for Maryann Zimmerman, a losing candidate in the 2022 Republican primary for the 31st Assembly District which then included the cities of Elkhorn and Whitewater. She did not run in 2024. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign has assigned that spending to GOP Rep. Shannon Zimmerman running in the 30th Assembly.)
Last active election: 2023
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.