Republicans lost key Wisconsin voters in 2016 too. And they don’t want to repeat Hillary Clinton’s mistake. The odds were against Wisconsin’s Republicans when two appeals court judges faced off for a 10-year term on the state’s Supreme Court this past April. Democrats — who would have flipped the court’s balance to a 4-3 liberal majority if they won — initially outspent Republicans by a 14-to-1 margin. Private polls showed the Republican, Brian Hagedorn, losing by double digits. A report surfaced that Hagedorn had started a school that considered banning teachers or students in same-sex relationships — causing the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Wisconsin Realtors Association to sit out. But using advanced voter data technology, the Koch-backed grass-roots conservative group Americans for Prosperity saw that half a million voters would back Hagedorn; they had just never voted in a state Supreme Court race before. Eric Bott, Wisconsin state director for the group, says they went from needing to reach millions to “we literally just need to connect with 250,000 people” to win. His mostly volunteer network sent 1.5 million pieces of targeted mail and made 750,000 voter contacts. Hagedorn won by 6,000 votes — in an election that had the second-highest turnout since 2000 for a nonpartisan Wisconsin race. |