Vos Hit By Surge of Outside Spending

Outside election spending has skyrocketed in the past week against GOP Assembly Speaker Robin Vos in the wake of an investigative report that portrayed the Foxconn project he helped spearhead as a boondoggle.

Last Monday, there was only about $19,300 in independent spending by express advocacy groups against Vos. As of this morning, outside spending against Vos had escalated to about $297,850.

Vos, of Rochester, represents the Racine-area’s 63rd Assembly District. He faces Democrat Joel Jacobsen, of Burlington, on the Nov. 3 ballot.

Topping the list of seven groups that are supporting Jacobsen or opposing Vos were A Better Wisconsin Together at about $175,300 and Wisconsin Conservation Voters at about $100,700.

The spending boon comes in the wake of a report by The Verge, a technology industry news website, that shows repeated failures by Foxconn to meet goals in the contract signed in 2017 with the state of Wisconsin. The company pledged to build an LCD factory in southeastern Wisconsin that would create 13,000 jobs in exchange for billions in state subsidies.

As of today an empty building 1/20 th the size of the promised factory sits on the Foxconn site, and the company recently received a permit to use the building as storage instead of a factory.

The Foxconn contract was approved by former GOP Gov. Scott Walker and the Republican-controlled legislature led by Vos and Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald.

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who was elected in 2018, has repeatedly called for the state contract with Foxconn to be renegotiated, which Vos has opposed.