In Wisconsin Recall, Online Push Not Enough For Darling, Olsen Races [CORRECTED]

The Wisconsin recall elections last night were a significant test for the online left, which raised and spent millions of dollars in an effort to shake loose the Republican Party's hold of that state's legislature.

The results were mixed — two of six Republican legislators unseated through the expenditure of millions of progressive and labor dollars, a mix of offline and online organizing, and the developing progressive strategy of raising money online to keep TV and radio spots on the air. With two Democratic state senators facing recall next week, it's unclear who's right about what to think about last night: Talking Points Memo's Josh Marshall, who says the left's significant exertion of effort was a win that helped build nationwide momentum, or the Wisconsin GOP, which said in a statement last night that the results were a voter repudiation of outside influence on state politics.

The Wisconsin elections were far more than a local concern — they were a focal point of national progressive groups, including a labor coalition-backed political action committee where the AFL-CIO and others threw their support. Labor and progressive groups raised and spent millions of dollars, including nearly $2 million raised online through ActBlue. To put the ActBlue fundraising in perspective, though, nonpartisan campaign spending watchdogs in Wisconsin say that progressive groups spent well over that amount on the unsuccessful campaign to unseat state Sen. Alberta Darling alone.

A PCCC anti-Darling ad that appeared online. Courtesy PCCC.

Campaign finance reports available online, as well as the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel's reporting, show the bulk of campaign spending went to traditional mail, TV and radio ads. But a spokesman for the Progressive Change Campaign Committee told me before the election that the web-savvy group had poured thousands of dollars into Google, Facebook, and other online ads as well. PCCC paid special attention to online work in Darling's district, attacking the woman described by the Wisconsin press as the highest-ranking Republican up for recall last night. Darling, by comparison, doesn't look to have spent much money online at all and focused instead on TV and radio ads exclusively — but a campaign spokesman has yet to return a request for comment.

"The PCCC specifically supplemented its TV ad buy in Luther Olsen and Alberta Darling's districts with online image and videos ads," spokesman Neil Sroka told me last week.

Update: PCCC co-founder Adam Green writes, "The PCCC and Democracy for America ran a "Call Out The Vote" national volunteer virtual phone bank, which much more qualifies as 'online organizing' than paying for online ads does. We made over 380,000 calls -- and the #1 race we called was Jennifer Shilling, who defeated Sen. Dan Kapanke in a landslide."

PCCC campaign bucks paid for over four million online ad impressions in Olsen's and Darling's districts through the beginning of last week, but Darling and Olsen both went on to keep their seats. That said, state Democratic Party chair Mike Tate pointed out to Talking Points Memo that Olsen did so only by a narrow margin, taking 52 percent of the vote to his Democratic opponent's 48 percent in a district that Tate told TPM had not elected a Democrat in over a century.

Despite the the lack of results in the two districts where the group made the most significant outlay, in a statement released last night, PCCC framed the left's two-for-six showing as a success.

"Tonight, Wisconsin voters made history and proved that when Republicans declare war on working families, they will be punished," PCCC co-founder Stephanie Taylor said in the statement. "When Democrats stand strong and fight for middle-class families, the grassroots base will volunteer, donate, vote, and help them win decisively at the ballot box."

A PCCC spokesman didn't immediately respond to a request for comment earlier today specifically on Darling's victory.

The Wisconsin GOP, on the other hand, cast last night as a victory over outside interests.

"The assault that was unleashed on our state by national unions and special interest groups has been defeated by the will of the taxpayers to move our state forward, and put the needs of Wisconsin families above union demands," Republican Party of Wisconsin Executive Director Stephan Thompson said in a statement released today.

This sounds familiar to me because it's a similar tack to the one Ohio Gov. John Kasich's spokesman, Rob Nichols, took when I asked him about the labor movement's increasingly tech-savvy activism and organizing. There are efforts underway in Ohio to recall overturn legislation similar to the Wisconsin laws that curtail the power of public-sector labor unions. In Nichols' view, these recall efforts reprise tactics that Kasich and Walker fought against and defeated twice already — once during the 2010 campaign and again while collective bargaining legislation made its way into law.

The direction of voter invective has changed since then. Scott's approval rating is down (cited in Aaron Blake's smart take on the Wisconsin recall results) and a poll in late July pegged Kasich's approval at an unimpressive 35 percent. At the same time, union leaders are telling me that they're getting the hang of bringing more and more people to the streets and to the polls through social media.

What exactly this all means will be clearer after next week, once the Democrats take their turn on defense as two of their own in the Wisconsin state senate face recall.

Update: Headline fail? Amanda Michel notes via Twitter: "I'm confused by this headline http://bit.ly/p4wJo8 Post cites ad stats, not online organizing stats (unless $ spent = proxy )"

PCCC backs up its initial TV ad buys with online fundraising efforts. With Democracy for America, they floated a TV ad in Luther Olsen's district in late July with an initial $100,000 buy. By asking supporters online to donate, they raised over $210,000 more for that specific campaign. Still, in the strictest sense, "organizing" in the headline could be misconstrued to mean getting people together online to take action offline.

Second Update: The headline for this article has been changed.