Rich, left-wing donors like George Soros, Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman are repeatedly exploiting the loophole left open by state Republicans.

By Peter Cameron and Hina Suzuki, THE BADGER PROJECT

Normally an off-year election wouldn’t attract a lot of attention or campaign donations, but the 2023 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court is not normal.

The winner of the race between Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz, the left-wing candidate, and former Justice Daniel Kelly, the right-wing candidate, will either flip the court’s majority to the left for the first time in years, or keep it on the right. That’s huge for a court that will likely be ruling soon on the legality of abortion, the state’s highly gerrymandered maps and perhaps even the votes in next year’s presidential election.

So campaign cash is flooding into Wisconsin, especially into the coffers of the state’s political parties. That’s because a loophole in state law allows wealthy donors — from both inside and outside the state — to circumvent campaign finance limits and route huge sums to the candidates.

While state law caps the amount a donor can give a candidate, no limits currently exist on what one can donate to a political party. And nothing limits what a political party can give to a candidate. So big donations to the political parties mean big transfers of cash to the candidates.

The loophole was opened by court decisions in recent years. State Democrats have proposed bills to close the loophole, but Republicans in control of the legislature have ignored them. So Democrats are now using the loophole to their advantage, raising huge sums through the state party.

In the first three months of 2023, Reid Hoffman, a California billionaire who co-founded LinkedIn, donated $2 million to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Liberal megadonor George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, whose family owns the Hyatt Hotels chain, each gave the party $1 million. Steven Spielberg and his wife, the actress Kate Capshaw from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom, each donated $125,000 to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Laure Ricketts, of the family who owns the Chicago Cubs and started TD Ameritrade, donated $100,000 to the party.

Liz Uihlein, one-half of the right-wing, billionaire couple who owns the shipping supplies company ULINE, donated $500,000 to the Republican Party of Wisconsin this year. But wealthy donors to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin have been much more active this year, and in recent years, than those to the GOP.

Instead, right-wing mega-donors like Liz Uihlein and her husband Dick are spending millions independent of the parties and the campaigns, using Super PACs to run advertisements promoting Kelly, their preferred candidate, and attacking Protasiewicz.

Below is a list of the top donors to political parties in Wisconsin in 2023.

The Badger Project is a nonpartisan, citizen-supported journalism nonprofit in Wisconsin.