Special wins in Wisconsin
Liberals’ big election wins this week were driven by long-term investment in the state
On Tuesday, all eyes in the political world turned to the Badger State, where voters once again headed to the polls in an off-year judicial race that will significantly impact our politics and democracy. As you’ve no doubt seen by now, liberal judge Susan Crawford beat MAGA-backed Brad Schimel by 10 points, despite Elon Musk spending tens of millions of dollars in the state bribing and deceiving voters. Turnout was relatively high on Election Day, driven both by Musk’s national attention-getting strategy and, more importantly, a machine of progressive long-term infrastructure investments perfectly tuned to meet these moments.
Our local newsroom in the state, UpNorthNews, has built one of the largest news and political audiences in the state on social media platforms and has been covering this race day in and day out. In the past two weeks, UpNorthNews has published over 74 original stories about the election on Instagram, 81 on Facebook, and 63 on TikTok. In addition, our WI reporters have been covering the race extensively for months in UpNorth’s free email newsletters that reach over 286,000 subscribers in the Badger State each week.
In the leadup to Election Day, our Wisconsin team also held a town hall event featuring progressive leaders and local voices in the state outlining the stakes of the judicial election that had over 100 in-person attendees and reached thousands more online (thank you to our sponsors of that event!). You can watch a recording of that event here:
In addition to our large-scale coverage of the state supreme court election, our team also doggedly covered the race for State Superintendent of Education, where Democrat Jill Underly was re-elected on Tuesday night.
Educating our audiences about these types of critical off-year races is one reason why I started COURIER nearly six years ago. Too often, Democrats and progressives invest in short-term, cyclical advertising programs that disappear after Election Day. At the same time, traditional local news coverage is trapped behind paywalls or doesn’t exist at all. Instead, our model combines year-round, values-driven local journalism and cutting-edge social media distribution strategies to build community and grow a permanent audience on multiple platforms. In Wisconsin, our amazing UpNorth News team has earned the trust of hundreds of thousands of Wisconsin voters over the past 5+ years who continue to turn to them for values-driven local news they simply can’t get anywhere else in the state.
Those of you who follow the changing media industry know that success often depends on an outlet’s ability to scale quickly to meet the information needs of their community with a high volume of consistently high quality, published content, and opportunities to deepen engagement with our readers offline. We are constantly looking for more ways to scale our newsrooms in Wisconsin, and across the country, including with local and national underwriting partners and sponsors of our events. If you know of values-aligned businesses, foundations, or individuals looking for more ways to support local journalism and protect democracy, please reach out directly. Let’s build on these big wins together.
More from our team:
In Arizona, Gen-Z social media creator and activist Deja Foxx announced she’s running for Congress in the 7th Congressional District. Our team at the Copper Courier had the exclusive first sit-down interview with the first-time candidate.
What I’m reading this week:
Trump says China could get tariff relief if it approves TikTok deal (Reuters, 4/3)
“President Donald Trump on Thursday said he would consider a deal for TikTok where China agrees to approve the sale of the short video app owned by Byte Dance in exchange for relief from U.S. tariffs on Chinese imports. Speaking to reporters aboard Air Force One, Trump used TikTok as an example of how tariffs can be used to negotiate with other countries.”
Conservative cable news channel Newsmax surges another 180% a day after stunning debut (Reuters, 4/1)
“Shares of conservative news outlet Newsmax (NMAX.N), opens new tab soared another 180% on Tuesday, extending their eye-popping gains a day after a stellar debut on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has been popular with retail investors, remaining the top trending ticker on retail investor-focused social media stocktwits.com since its debut, which traders said parallels the pattern of other hotly-traded retail favorites, known as meme stocks.”
Why Was Newsmax, the Right-Wing Channel, Suddenly Worth More Than U.S. Steel? (NYT, 4/3)
“Newsmax lost $55 million in the first half of last year. But its stock surged this week as shares in the company traded on the public market for the first time.