Betsy Ankney

Campaign manager, Gov. Bruce Rauner

Betsy Ankney is no stranger to long-shot races. She headed Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s campaign in 2016, when he delivered an upset to Russ Feingold in Wisconsin.

She ran field offices for Scott Brown’s 2010 U.S. Senate campaign in Massachusetts and Chris Christie’s first run as New Jersey governor.

At age 31, Ankney is now heading perhaps the most challenging gubernatorial reelection campaign in the country: that of Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner.

The GOP governor of a blue state in an expected blue-wave year is repeatedly cast as the most endangered in the nation — and that was before he nearly lost to a little-known state lawmaker in the March primary. On top of it, he’s facing off against free-spending billionaire J.B. Pritzker.

Still, Ankney’s been here before. In 2016, the better-funded Feingold was predicted to oust Johnson for a Senate seat viewed as one of the best Democratic pick-up opportunities in the country.

“We need to execute our plan, we have to stay focused, tune out the noise and stay motivated,” Ankney said. “That’s what we had to do in Wisconsin.”

Unlike in the Johnson race, Rauner is a multimillionaire who has already contributed more than $50 million from his personal fortune toward his reelection run and has had the steadfast backing of billionaire Ken Griffin. Rauner must also contend with the fact that in a state where Donald Trump is wildly unpopular, Rauner is even less well-liked.

But Ankney can tap from lessons learned after crisscrossing the country in various campaigns since she was 21. The Toledo, Ohio, native was in her junior year of college and just returning from a year abroad in Copenhagen when she went to work at the 2008 Republican National Convention in St. Paul, Minnesota.

“They convinced me to take a semester off of college and go to Minnesota,” she said. “It was a little bit of a culture shock going from Copenhagen to St. Paul.” She returned three weeks late to the start of her senior year at Vanderbilt University but dove right back into politics after graduation. That included stints at the Republican National Committee as regional and deputy political director.

It was the Wisconsin contest that thrust Ankney into prominence in political circles. The American Association of Political Consultants named Ankney “Campaign Manager of the Year” for her work in the 2016 Johnson campaign. Asked to what degree the Johnson win can be attributed to the red wave supporting Trump, Ankney described it as “reverse coattails in Wisconsin.”

“We outperformed Trump. It was very much a team effort. We helped him in some areas, and he helped us in some areas,” she said. “I do think that Donald Trump would have not won Wisconsin if it wasn’t for Ron Johnson’s victory.”

Part of the strategy Johnson’s campaign employed involved looking at Republican-heavy areas and tapping into regional issues that resonated with those voters, then sharply focusing digital messaging. The most effective example was that of the gray wolf, native to portions of the state.

“We supported removing it from the endangered list. It was killing livestock, it was causing car accidents,” Ankney said. “There were everyday issues … affecting people’s lives. We spoke to them very directly about it.”

Ankney said digital messaging targeted residents in North Central Wisconsin and in small towns with populations of less than 10,000 people.

In Illinois, Ankney said the messaging will go something like this: “I think we make this a choice: between Bruce Rauner and J.B. Pritzker. Between reform and corruption, and between lower taxes and higher taxes,” Ankney said. “We are going to fight for every inch. We have to outhustle and outwork our opponent. We are prepared to do that from the governor on down.”

So what is Illinois’ gray wolf issue? Ankney laughed: “We will tell you after we win.” — Natasha Korecki

Photos by Christopher Dilts for POLITICO.

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