MADISON, Wis. – Republican state legislative candidate Michele Magadance Skinner was recently forced to reveal that her campaign for Wisconsin state senate is being funded nearly exclusively (99.6%) by MAGA billionaires and right-wing special interests with very little (0.4%) support coming from actual residents of the district she’s running to represent. An analysis of a finance report recently filed by Skinner’s campaign shows that less than 1% of her total contributions – a mere $500 out of her approximately $120,000 total money raised – came from anywhere close to the 31st Senate District she is running to represent. Instead, nearly all of Skinner’s financial support is coming from MAGA billionaires like Wisconsin’s richest person Diane Hendricks, special interests like Wisconsin’s conservative business lobby, and the Committee to Elect a Republican Senate (CERS), which transferred $100,000 to Skinner the same week it raked in $4 million itself from Hendricks and right-wing Illinois billionaire Elizabeth Uihlein. “Based on these numbers, it appears Magadance Skinner has more incentive to do the bidding of the ultra-wealthy than she does to represent the best interests of the hardworking people of Wisconsin’s 31st Senate District,” said A Better Wisconsin Together spokeswoman Lucy Ripp. It’s perhaps unsurprising for Skinner to be funding her campaign from outside the 31st Senate District given her record of phoning in her participation on the Eau Claire County Board from outside her district during much of the year. Minutes of the Eau Claire County Board show that Skinner calls in to about one out of every three county board meetings, apparently preferring to spend time in Florida in a million-dollar luxury home with a heated pool and hot tub instead of in the district she is supposed to represent.
