Hijacking Campaign 2024 | Independent Expenditures | Issue Ads | Candidates | Offices | Campaign 2024
Posted: July 16, 2024
Updated: October, 6, 2025
This is an independent expenditure committee with a Pewaukee address that first sponsored electioneering activities in Wisconsin in 2021 when the group dropped $20,000 to successfully oppose one of five Republican candidates in a primary for the 89th Assembly special election. The group later spent over $407,000 in the 2022 fall elections where the bulk of its spending was devoted to defending Assembly Speaker Robin Vos against a challenger in the Republican primary.
All of the committee's 2024 income, over $294,000, came from Americans 4 Security, Inc., a major funder of two other independent expenditure committees active in the 2024 elections, Speak Free Or Die and the Stronger Wisconsin Fund. Little is known about Americans 4 Security. Its registered office address matches that of a UPS shipping center in Plover, Wis. and the registered corporate agent is Matthew M. Fernholz, a Waukesha attorney and former president of the Milwaukee Chapter of the Federalist Society, a national legal association that promotes conservative and libertarian legal theories. Fernholz was also listed as contact for the Stronger Wisconsin Fund in 2024.
In mid-July, the group reported it had spent over $98,000 for mailers, online advertising and canvassing in February to support Vos. Presumably, the February spending was intended to forestall unsuccessful efforts to initiate a recall election against Vos who then represented the 63rd State Assembly District. As new legislative district maps took effect in 2024, Vos ran for the 33rd Assembly in that year's fall elections.
Eight days before the November 5th general election, Wisconsinites for Liberty reported spending $25,000 for online advertising to oppose Vos's Independent opponent Kelly Clark. Vos won reelection with Clark placing third, behind the Democratic candidate.
Last active election: 2022
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.