Did the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee desert Mandy Wright?

On election night Democratic State Rep. Mandy Wright, who represents Wisconsin’s 85th Assembly District, lost by just 86 votes to her Republican challenger. The results of the election were somewhat surprising, as Wright wasn’t seen as being as vulnerable as fellow Democratic State Rep. Stephen Smith (AD-75) or Amy Sue Vruwink (AD-70), and especially given the fact that Rep. Wright’s race was one of the four or five races the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee (ADCC) had targeted their resources into.

However, what I’ve been told from a source close to the Wright campaign is that while the ADCC did allocate resources to Wright’s campaign, during the last three weeks of the campaign those resources largely evaporated as the ADCC shifted their focus to assisting the reelection campaigns of Democratic State Reps. Daniel Riemer and Gordon Hintz, both of whom saw an influx of third-party spending into their races thanks to the right-wing American Federation for Children.

According to my source, the Wright campaign watched as van loads of Capitol staff went to Milwaukee and Oshkosh to assist the Riemer and Hintz campaigns, while the Wright campaign’s pleas for help fell on deaf ears. “We’d over and over again ask for volunteers,” said the source, noting that all the Wright campaign received was five people. “We got 5 people on a workday from 11:00 a.m. until 3:00 p.m.,” added my source.

As the Wright campaign asked for volunteers to be sent to Wausau to assist the campaign, they were told, “We’re not worried about Mandy; Mandy is fine.” Assurances from the ADCC that Mandy Wright was fine came despite the Wright campaign’s insistence that they were being outspent on radio, TV, Internet, and mailings, with over $41,000 being spent in opposition to Mandy Wright by the right-wing American Federation for Children $100,000 by the Jobs First Coalition, and $90,000 by the campaign of Republican challenger David Heaton.

Asked whether ADCC resources were diverted from Mandy Wright’s campaign in order to help incumbent Democratic State Reps. Gordon Hintz and Daniel Riemer, a source with knowledge of the inner workings of the ADCC acknowledged the ADCC did give additional help to Reps. Hintz and Riemer despite the fact that their races weren’t targeted by the ADCC. That source was quick to dismiss any assertions the ADCC diverted resources away from Mandy Wright’s race and into the Riemer and Hintz races. “No help to them came from Mandy,” said the source, adding that the ADCC believed Wright was still on track to win her race. While the ADCC denied any resources were diverted away from Mandy Wright’s race in order to help Daniel Riemer and Gordon Hintz, my source asserted Dave Groshek, who is listed as a staffer for Rep. Riemer, had been put in charge of sending out volunteers for the ADCC, while Emily Pritzkow, another ADCC insider, happens to work on Rep. Hintz’s staff.

According to my source, after the results of the election showed Wright had lost the race by 86 votes, individuals within the ADCC claimed Wright would have gotten 86 more votes if she hadn’t traveling the state with Dale Schultz, or recording radio spot. However, as my source noted, Wright outperformed Burke by more than a thousand votes in her district, while also far surpassing the “win number” provided to Wright’s campaign by the ADCC.

Obviously I don’t know for sure what happened between the ADCC and Mandy Wright’s reelection campaign, but it certainly appears there’s some discontent with the way the ADCC is perceived to have handled the Wright race – and I know that’s not the only discontent towards the ADCC when it comes to how that group handled the Assembly races it chose to focus on.