The ad battle for a deciding seat on the Wisconsin supreme court is pulling hard to the left as the vociferously pro-abortion Janet Protasiewicz amasses enough cash to make even a Chicago politician wonder how to spend it all. Opposing her, penniless in comparison, is Dan Kelly, the survivor of the ugly conservative primary bout.
Alexander Shur reports for the Wisconsin State Journal:
Janet Protasiewicz has a major early spending lead over Dan Kelly in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, according to media tracking firm Medium Buying.
By early Monday afternoon, liberals had reserved over $7 million in ads between the primary and April 4 general election to boost Protasiewicz’s Wisconsin Supreme Court bid.
Between the primary and Monday, conservatives hadn’t run television ads to boost Kelly. But Fair Courts America, a group funded by GOP donor Richard Uihlein, committed to spending $866,000 on ads on Monday, according to Medium Buying.
Conservatives will almost certainly spend millions more to support Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice. But at this point, Protasiewicz has more than a 7-to-1 ad spending advantage over Kelly in the general election.
Kelly not only needs friendly ad dollars that aren’t coming from liberals like they did when he was shunting aside fellow conservative Jennifer Dorow, but also the votes of the (miffed) Dorow supporters. Poor and unpopular is not an ideal way to run a campaign.
Note: Brian Hagedorn, a Federalist Society conservative justice elected in 2019, faced a similar fundraising challenge when running against Lisa Neubauer. So it’s not out of the realm of possibility for Kelly to overcome an early deficit. However, I’d argue that Hagedorn was a better candidate running against a weaker opponent, and Hagedorn’s victory occurred before the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade inflamed the liberal base.