GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) – After an unprecedented amount of special interest money was spent on Green Bay’s city council elections, candidates backed by conservative-leaning groups fared better than those supported by liberal-leaning groups.
The 12 city council seats are nonpartisan, but that didn’t stop a flood of political action committee money being spent in the days leading up to the election.
The investments were listed on the state database as having been made as independent expenditures, which means they were done without coordination or acceptance from the candidates.
According to the state’s database, Restoration PAC, a conservative group from Illinois, spent more than $23,000 on mailers between six candidates: Jen Grant, Andy Nicholson, Bill Morgan, Robert Maccaux, Steven Campbell, and Melinda Eck. All but Nicholson and Maccaux won their races.
Open Democracy PAC, a liberal group from Washington D.C., spent $90,000 on digital ads for Michael Poradek, Aron Obrecht and Jim Hutchison, according to the state’s database. Although reports were not on the state’s database yet, it appears the group also invested in digital ads on Facebook for Barb Dorff and Lynn Gerlach. Only Hutchison won his race out of those five candidates.
In all, five of 12 city council seats will have new representation. Dorff and Gerlach were the only incumbents who lost re-election bids. John VanderLeest, Veronica Corpus-Dax, and Kathy Lefebvre decided to not run again.
