Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our our newsletter to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup. This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Outside special interest groups spent at least 50% more than the previous record high in the midterm election in Wisconsin this year, pouring more than $93 million into races for governor and other state offices, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reported Monday.
The largest majority of money, nearly $79 million, was spent on the governor’s race won by Democratic incumbent Gov. Tony Evers over Republican challenger Tim Michels.
The previous record of nearly $62 million was set in the 2018 midterm election. Spending by outside groups that operate under different rules that candidates has been increasing exponentially in recent years. In 2010, for example, just $19 million was spent by the groups, according to the Democracy Campaign, an independent group that tracks campaign spending.
In total, 35 groups spend just over $48 million to help Republicans, while 36 groups spent $44 million to benefit Democrats, the Democracy Campaign said. The Democratic Governors Association spent the most, at just over $20 million, followed by $15 million by the Republican Governors Association.
The spending totals do not include races for the U.S. Senate or the U.S. House. The figures do include the races for governor, lieutenant governor, attorney general, secretary of state, treasurer and all legislative races.
Republish this article
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- Credit should be given, in this format: “By Dee J. Hall, Wisconsin Watch”
- If published online, you must include the links and link to wisconsinwatch.org
- If you share the story on social media, please mention @wisconsinwatch (Twitter, Facebook and Instagram)
- Don’t sell the story — it may not be marketed as an individual product.
- Don’t sell ads against the story. But you can publish it with pre-sold ads.
- Your website must include a prominent way to contact you.
- Additional elements that are packaged with our story must be labeled.
- Users can republish our photos, illustrations, graphics and multimedia elements ONLY with stories with which they originally appeared. You may not separate multimedia elements for standalone use.
- If we send you a request to change or remove Wisconsin Watch content from your site, you must agree to do so immediately.
For questions regarding republishing rules please contact Andy Hall, executive director, at ahall@wisconsinwatch.org