Interest group impact: Will labor unions come through for Tammy Baldwin?
By Tim Haggerty
Backing from labor union members has been crucial to Democrat Tammy Baldwin’s campaign fundraising success in the past.
But with Wisconsin unions shrinking in size under Republican-sponsored limits, can labor come through again in her re-election campaign?
When Baldwin won her first US Senate term in 2012, she received $1,211,254 in political action committee (PAC) money, from many different sectors.
According to OpenSecrets, ideological/single Issue was the biggest component of the donations coming in from PACs at $671,650. (Within that category, leadership PACs played the biggest role followed by Democratic/liberal groups).
Labor unions were the second-highest donating of the sectors in the 2012 race, at $360,000.
Public sector unions such as the American Federation of Teachers or American Federation of Government Employees contributed the most in the labor sector with $103,750. Building trade unions, industrial unions, and transportation unions all contributed in a big way too, donating $187,000 combined.
Baldwin’s gifts from labor PACS represented 30% of all of the PAC money she received in that election.
When she ran for a seat in the House of Representatives six times over the course of 2000–2010, labor unions again played big role in her finances. For example, in her first four elections spanning from 2000–2006, no less than 46% of her total PAC money came from labor unions.
Comparing the 2012 Senate election to 2018’s is dicey until all the votes and money are counted this time.
But for the record, from 2013 to late April 2018, Baldwin received $202,500 from labor unions. That was just 13% of her total reported PAC haul, which features far more business-related donations than her mix in 2011–12.
Since 2011, many unions in Wisconsin have lost members. According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “no state has lost more of its labor union identity than Wisconsin since 2011.” More than 14% of workers in Wisconsin were union members in 2011, and in 2015 just 8.3% of workers were union members.
Governor Scott Walker approved a law in 2015 that ended requirements that many workers pay union fees if they didn’t join but still were represented.
Baldwin is the lone Democrat running for the seat in the Senate. On the Republican side, Kevin Nicholson and Leah Vukmir are campaigning for the Republican nomination to run against Baldwin.
Nicholson is a veteran of the US Marines and has never held an elected position in government. Leah Vukmir is a nurse and has served as a Wisconsin State Representative and Senator since 2002.
Deep Pocketed Friends and Enemies
Winning an election often times is strongly correlated to raising more money than your opponents.
The Washington Post found that in congressional races in 2012, the candidate that raises the most money wins the election 91% of the time. Baldwin should know that’s true better than anyone. According to Open Secrets, she successfully raised more money by far than her opponent in every election so far in her career.
Still, having a millionaire or billionaire spending money on the outside can play a huge role.
As of late May, money raised by independent groups supporting Baldwin totaled $1,047,030, while money spent to criticize her totaled $3,125,000. Another $7.5 million in outside spending went to benefit the two Republicans, mainly Nicholson.
One specific wealthy individual involved is Illinois business magnate Richard Uihlein (Uline Company in Wisconsin), and he is pushing hard against Baldwin’s cause.
Uihlein is the biggest donor for two outside spending sources. Restoration PAC has devoted $541,374 against Baldwin and $2,534,000 supporting Nicholson. Uihlein has donated more than $4,250,000 to the PAC. For scale, Restoration PAC has spent a total of $4,122,390 in 2017–2018, as of May 22.
Uihlein is also a major donor to Americas PAC, which spent $703,500 against Baldwin through May 22, and over $2,600,000 supporting Nicholson. According to Open Secrets, that money has gone towards mostly media ads created through Wisconsin based companies such as Milwaukee Radio Group, Lakefront Communications and MWC Radio.
On Baldwin’s side, it was far less simple to pinpoint exactly who was behind the outside money being spent to aid her.
Of Baldwin’s outside support, 98.6% has come from one PAC that includes a long list of donors. Baldwin’s biggest outside spending supporter by far is the Senate Majority PAC. It had spent $1,033,219 supporting Baldwin as of May 22.
At that point, the Senate Majority PAC had spent over $12.3 million in the 2018 election cycle. That means the Baldwin race represented less than 10% of all spending by the superPAC. While the PAC isn’t dark — there are several big donors noted by Open Secrets — it’s not listed specifically whose money went where.
“Dark Money refers to political spending meant to influence the decision of a voter, where the donor is not disclosed and the source of the money is unknown,” according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs OpenSecrets.org.
One specific donor to the Senate Majority PAC in November 2017 was billionaire and Democratic Party donor George Soros. According to Open Secrets, Soros donated $1,000,000 to the PAC.
Soros could fit the bill as somebody who would support Baldwin (and he has, in a contribution directly to her campaign in 2012). But there are more than 1,000 givers to the Senate Majority PAC in this election, so the connection to Baldwin is not direct.
Executives at organizations that made donations to the Senate Majority PAC included Renaissance Technologies ($3,500,000), Newsweb Corp ($2,000,000), Working for Working Americans ($2,000,000) and LIUNA Building America ($1,500,000).
Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce
Looking closer at the groups opposing Baldwin, the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce has been an early big spender. They are a 501c dark money nonprofit that has spent $1,657,292 against Tammy Baldwin, as of May 22. That’s the only money the group spent early in the cycle.
According to Open Secrets, 100% of that money has gone to In Pursuit Of, which claims that the money has gone towards web ads and unspecified media ads. The group defines themselves as a “full-service communications and marketing agency.”
Because the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce is a dark money nonprofit, it does not need to disclose donors to the public.
According to the New York Times, the Freedom Partners Action Fund is a part of the Freedom Partners umbrella used to support candidates across the country. The Action Fund is not dark, in contrast to the Chamber of Commerce.
According to Open Secrets, the Freedom Partners Action Fund spent nearly $3,000,000 in support of Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson or against opponent Russ Feingold when Johnson successfully ran for re-election in 2016.
Some big names have given to the Freedom Partners Action Fund in the 2018 election cycle, such as Charles Koch ($3,000,000) and Richard DeVos ($1,000,000), relative of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. While this doesn’t mean that the pair are involved with the money spent against Baldwin, it does tie them to the organization that spent the money.
According to the New York Times, the Koch brothers are behind the Freedom Partners umbrella. The Freedom Partners are run by former Americans for Prosperity top strategist Alan Cobb. Americans for Prosperity, or AFP, is a conservative political advocacy group.
