Wisconsinites cannot be blamed if they’re burned out from the American electoral system. Last November was the culmination of a $348M ad war in their state playing out across local broadcast, local cable, radio, addressable TV, Hispanic broadcast TV and national cable. Ads pertaining to the presidential race, a US Senate campaign, several House of Representative races as well as a ballot measure were ubiquitous on media targeted towards America’s Dairyland- $183M from Democrat-aligned sponsors and $165M from Republican groups.
They enjoyed a brief holiday respite until the first ads appeared in January related to the state’s open state supreme court seat. Though officially non-partisan, both parties and their aligned PACs supported the candidate best representing their agenda. In less than 3 months, MediaRadar tracked $53M in spending primarily on local broadcast and local cable but also airings on the radio, addressable TV and national cable. It is the most expensive state supreme court race in history.
In a reversal of this fall’s election in which the GOP was outspent but whose presidential candidate won the state, this time the Democrats were [narrowly] outspent by GOP-aligned groups in the race for the open state supreme court seat. Their candidate- Susan Crawford- won the race by a comfortable margin, nonetheless.
The majority of the ad spend targeted Milwaukee and Green Bay, though Madison, La Crosse and Wausau were well-represented. Ads for this race also appeared on national cable – presumably for fundraising purposes- as well as media outlets in MN, IL and IA.
In terms of messaging, BOTH parties prioritized addressing concerns over public safety/crime. It was, by far, the most consistently aired theme during this ad campaign. Both parties also agreed it was vital to address concerns related to domestic violence. They then parted ways after that with Democrat ads focusing on maintaining women’s access to reproductive healthcare while Republicans touted Brad Schimel’s connections to President Trump as well as his commitment to education.
As highlighted here, MediaRadar has touched upon Elon Musk’s role in the Trump administration and his showing up in political ads as a lightning rod. In this election? $1.4M was spent on ads targeting the head of DOGE with 4,336 ad airings, all of which was negative advertising from Democrat-aligned sponsors appearing on local broadcast TV and national cable.
America PAC, the political advocacy group Musk founded last summer, played an active role in campaigning for Schimel during this election. The majority of this spending was allocated towards GOTV efforts and grassroots organizing. However, they did air $404K worth of radio advertising in the following markets:
Even with President Trump’s frenetic pace of controversial Executive Orders and a commitment to tariffs- which is atypical of Republican economic orthodoxy—his poll numbers have dipped only slightly into the mid-40s since his inauguration. Special House elections in Florida—deep red, GOP territory—were comfortably won by Republicans on April 1st. This WI state supreme court seat was held by a left-leaning, progressive judge and Crawford’s win is a continuation of that status quo.
While it is noteworthy that—for the first time in a long time—the Republicans outspent their Democrat opponents in a high-profile race and lost, Wisconsin leans towards the “blue” side of a “purple” state so we must avoid the temptation to overread into this result.
