But these attacks backfired and motivated the conservative base. They saw that the attacks on Hagedorn’s school were in effect imposing an unconstitutional religious test: that you cannot be a Christian and a judge. These groups were functionally persecuting Hegedorn for his religious beliefs. And whether voters held those same beliefs or not, they didn’t fall for the bigoted attacks. When voters heard about this, they were upset and motivated to take action. The conservative grassroots went out and knocked on doors, texted friends and family members, and delivered more votes for Hagedorn.

Another key aspect was that Judge Neubauer tried to position herself as a moderate and independent judge, despite being very connected to the Democratic Party and Planned Parenthood. When voters were informed of her connections to socialist policies and infanticide-supporting groups, it helped Hagedorn. Our organization, American Majority Action, saw this as we went door to door and spoke to voters in real time. We focused on voters in seven counties across the state. Our survey results showed a 10+% shift to Hagedorn over the final two weeks as more voters were informed of Neubauer’s radical ties. In places where we knocked on doors, we saw votes shift by 15% or more from their 2018 totals. In Oostburg, where we spoke with hundreds of voters, we saw Hagedorn receive 361 more votes than Screnock in 2018. This happened in communities all across the state. Face-to-face communication is the best way to win over voters in any election, and given the unfair attacks by liberals in this case, it proved particularly effective.