Gov. Evers, Democratic groups spent most in record-setting race for governor
(The Center Square) – Democrats and their outside groups by far spent the most money in Wisconsin’s most expensive gubernatorial race ever.
The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign on Tuesday released the spending numbers from last year’s race.
In all, Gov. Tony Evers, Republican Tim Michels, and outside groups spent $164 million on the 2022 race for governor in Wisconsin.
“That smashed the previous record $93.06 million set in the 2018 governor’s race by 77 percent,” The Democracy Campaign wrote in its analysis. “The 2022 record was also 101% higher than the $81.78 million spent by candidates and groups in the 2014 race for governor and more than four times higher than the $37.37 million spent in the 2010 governor’s race.”
An even more stark comparison, the Democracy Campaign noted, the 2002 race for Wisconsin governor cost just over $20 million. That’s a $140 million increase in 20 years.
Gov. Tony Evers spent the most on the race.
“Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and his running mate, Sara Rodriguez, led candidate spending with $41.9 million. Republican candidate for governor Tim Michels, who faced Evers on the November ballot, and his running mate, Roger Roth, spent $28.48 million,” the Campaign noted.
While the candidates themselves spent nearly $71 million on the race, the remaining expenditures came from outside advocacy groups.
“Outside groups that smeared and praised the candidates with disclosed independent expenditures and secret phony issue ads spent $85.94 million,” the Democracy Campaign stated in its report. “They spent $45.87 million to support Evers and $39.39 million to support Michels or one of the other GOP candidates during the primary.”
The largest single-spending outside group, by far, was the Democratic Governors Association.
The report shows the DGA spent $26.6 million in the 2022 race.
That is more than the next four, top-spending Republican and conservative groups combined.
The Democracy Campaign lists the top Republican outside spender as the Republican Governors Association at $9.2 million; followed by Americans for Prosperity at $5.4 million; Fighting for Wisconsin at $4.3 million; and Republican Governors Association PAC at $4 million.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce was also a top spender in the 2022 race, but WMC is Wisconsin’s largest business group not a political action committee, and focused much of its ads on inflation and the state of Wisconsin’s economy.
