Some Republicans are trying to buy Democrat Primaries
We have found evidence of Republican aligned organizations dumping money into Democratic primaries. The evidence came from mailers sent out supporting Jarrod Anderson and attacking Ryan Clancy in the Assembly District 19 race, but one of the groups is also interfering in other Democratic primaries. We can’t do an exhaustive search before Tuesday’s election, so this article will focus on these two groups, but we hope to dig and find more in the future. If you’ve seen any suspicious mailers or ads, especially negative attacks paid for by a vaguely named organization, please send us pictures at MilwaukeeBeagle@gmail.com. We will get to digging.
For now, let’s start with these two groups. The first is Wisconsin Workers United (WWU), which is an “independent expenditure” funded by Wisconsin Infrastructure Investment Now (WIIN), a political non-profit led by Terrance McGowan. McGowan has backed conservative Republicans Tim Michaels and Scott Walker for Wisconsin governor. The second is the Milwaukee Police Association, who gave more than $170,000 to Republicans between 2010 and 2023.
Wisconsin Workers United
Strap in, cuz this one gets convoluted. We pulled together this table from publicly available campaign finance data. Wisconsin Workers United put $95,598.54 into three Democratic primaries. WWU gets most of its money ($60,000) from WIIN, whose president is Terrance McGowan. McGowan, a Pewaukee resident, is also the president, business manager, and licensed lobbyist for the International Union of Operating Engineers local 139, a union that represents construction workers. The building trades are traditionally the most conservative and reactionary part of the labor movement. In 2020, Kim Kelly, an excellent labor columnist for Teen Vogue wrote about efforts to win building trades back from Trumpism, but that effort clearly missed McGowan, who gave $2,500 to Republican Tim Michaels’ run at Wisconsin Governor in 2022. McGowan and his various affiliates have sometimes also given to Democrats, and have been critical of union-busting Scott Walker after initially supporting him. Based on what we know so far, this behavior suggests McGowan is a political opportunist who tends to back conservatives, but gets mad at them when their anti-worker policies come around to hurt him and his members directly.
The first half ($45,984) of WWU’s money boosted Melissa Ratcliff’s campaign starting in early July. Ratcliff is running for senate district 16 outside Madison. We are the Milwaukee Beagle, so we don’t follow Madison politics closely, but Ratcliff seems like an authentic Democrat. She’s focused on reproductive freedom, clean water, and she co-founded the Transgender Parent and Non-binary Advocacy Caucus with Representative Ryan Clancy. It’s really only after comparing her with other candidates in that race that we can see why conservatives and Republicans would choose her.
Senate district 16 is a deep blue open seat including suburbs south and east of Madison. The Democrats who currently represent the three Assembly Districts making up SD 16 are all running. Jimmy Anderson, a lawyer and former non-profit director, who was paralyzed from the chest down after being hit by a drunk driver, represents AD 47, which is 73% blue. Republicans despise Anderson ever since he stood up to Robin Vos who tried to use his disability to limit his participation in government. Terrance McGowan also seems to have personal beef with Anderson dating back to 2016 when another of his dark money groups also attempted to use Anderson’s disability against him. Samba Baldeh, represents AD 48, which is 62% blue. He’s an immigrant from Gambia and former Madison alderperson and common council president. A Black leader of Wisconsin’s liberal bastion who is also an immigrant? Do we need to wonder why Republicans don’t like him? Meanwhile, Ratcliff’s district is only 56% blue. She lives in the village of Cottage Grove and served three terms on the village board there. Her campaign talking points include working across the aisle with neighboring rural politicians. Despite seeming quite liberal, she is clearly the most conservative-friendly choice for State Senate District 16.
Another $7,500 of WWU’s money went into backing Sheila Stubbs against Maia Pearson. Stubbs is a former Department of Corrections community supervision officer who humored and helped validate the Republican led “task force on racial disparities” even after it was exposed as a clear bad faith effort to distract from a substantive response to the 2020 protest movement.
The remaining $42,114 of WWU’s money went against Ryan Clancy in the district 19 race. McGowan and friends took a page out of the playbook pro-genocide Zionists used on Jamal Bowman and Cori Bush: dropping massive cash (nearly double what Clancy’s opponent previously spent) on mailers late in the race, making it difficult to effectively respond or expose the money’s source. McGowan and building trades people are probably most mad at Ryan Clancy for opposing the Republican scheme to give $545 million to Brewers owner Mark Attanasio for the stadium construction project. The ads don’t mention this at all. It seems McGowan believes his construction buddies are entitled to some portion of our taxpayer money trickling down from the pockets of a business owner worth more than $700 million, but won’t come out and say it directly, because they know voters disagree.
Instead, the mailers repeat attacks Anderson has been using all through the campaign. One quoted Clancy’s criticism of police out of context, and the other claimed Anderson will help Democrats win in the state assembly. This is a strange claim, because, in truth, challenging the incumbent in a safe Democrat seat is a surefire way to see Democrats spend resources fighting each other, resources that otherwise could be used winning purple districts and taking the legislature.
Milwaukee Police Association
The second Republican-backing group interfering in the Democratic Primary is much more straightforward. The Milwaukee Police Association (MPA) spent $18,250 on spam texts, digital ads, and a website against Ryan Clancy. The police association calls itself a labor union, but they make the building trades look like woke liberals in comparison. Historically, police have functioned as opponents of labor, originating from slave patrols and engaging in strike repression and union busting. The labor movement was very hesitant about allowing police—the people who’ve been tasked with dispensing violence on behalf of the government—to form political associations, for fear that they would use their position to pursue their group self-interest. That hesitancy was justified, because, in many ways, they have.
The MPA has it out for Ryan Clancy because he is one of very few politicians to pursue the demands of the massive 2020 protest movement. He has made enemies in local government by fighting to move funds out of law enforcement and into human needs. He has used his privileged position as a white guy elected to a safe district to advance critical discourse about policing and abolition. After most other electeds ignored the opportunity he created with the African American Roundtable to engage the subject with sophistication and depth, he mixed in some provocative public statements. No one should be surprised that police would invest $18,250 in silencing critical thinking. Maintaining the public safety myth—that adding police violence to situations of systemic racism and institutional neglect helps people—is how they make their money in the first place.
district 19 money summary
In addition to this dark money, there is an ideological slant to the direct campaign contributions in these races. In a prior article I explained how, most of the large Anderson donations came from wealthy areas north of district 19. That area skews blue, but far less than D19 itself. Many of the large in-district donations also came from mansions on or near Lake Drive, probably the richest, most conservative part of D19. We created a graphic to help visualize this. Each circle represents an individual donation and the size of the circle correlates to the size of the donation. Observe the density of Anderson’s donations (red circles) in the north suburbs, and their near-absence in the southern portion of district 19 itself. Clancy has many more small donations, from every part of the district as well as all around the city.
WWU and MPA are probably only the most obvious and Milwaukee-focused examples of Republican groups tilting Democratic primaries. We expect others to emerge, and after Tuesday, we will start tracking which Democrats got in the legislature based on support of district residents, and which ones bought their seats with Republican money.
In the meantime, let’s review Jarrod Anderson’s democratic credentials once more.
He hangs out with conservative Republicans.
He doesn’t support the LGBTQ community (no mention of LGBTQ people in his platform or social posts, even during pride month).
He is endorsed by local leaders who work closely with Republicans to hurt our city.
He was motivated to join the race by disdain for anti-genocide protests, and lied about it.
He is primarily raising funds from areas that are more conservative than the one he’s running for.
And now we can add:
Between WWU and MPA, at least half of his campaign spending came from Republican-aligned groups.
Regardless of what all his glossy mailers say, Jarrod Anderson is clearly not the Democratic choice.
