The biggest election since Donald Trump’s win is here – and Elon Musk is at its center
The first big election since President Donald Trump’s 2024 victory has arrived – and Elon Musk is front-and-center.
Voters in Wisconsin, one of the nation’s most critical battleground states, will decide on April 1 whether their state Supreme Court will have a liberal or conservative majority. The technically nonpartisan race has turned into a high-stakes partisan proxy fight with national ramifications. The race has attracted record sums of money and resources, with the lion’s share coming from Mr. Musk, who recently said the race could “decide the fate of the country.”
On that point, at least, Democrats largely agree. They have cast the race as an early test of their ability to defend their democracy from the Trump administration’s assault – and sought to use Mr. Musk’s heavy involvement to motivate their base.
Why We Wrote This
State Supreme Court races don’t usually get much attention – but in this battleground state, with a congressional map at stake, the stakes are high for both sides. Tuesday’s election in Wisconsin will also be a key early test of which party is more energized.
“The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is the first test since November of whether Musk and Trump can buy American democracy – or whether people who believe the country shouldn’t just work for far-right billionaires can get up off the mat and fight back,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chairman Ben Wikler tells the Monitor.
Whoever wins the race between liberal judge Susan Crawford and conservative Judge Brad Schimel, a Republican former state attorney general, will give their side a majority on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court – and the power to decide some major issues that stretch far past Wisconsin.
President Trump endorsed Mr. Schimel’s campaign last Friday, a move that longtime strategists in both parties say hasn’t happened in decades, if ever. Mr. Trump attacked Judge Crawford on Truth Social as “the handpicked voice of the Leftists who are out to destroy your State, and our Country,” warning that if she wins, “the Movement to restore our Nation will bypass Wisconsin.”
One top issue – which Mr. Musk cited as the reason for his big spending – is whether Wisconsin’s gerrymandered congressional map remains in place. Republicans currently hold six of eight House seats in a state that’s evenly divided between the two parties, largely because of a congressional map drawn by statehouse Republicans. If that map gets struck down by a liberal-majority court, a new map could help decide which party wins control of the House in 2026.
“This election is going to affect everyone in the United States,” Mr. Musk said during a weekend X Spaces conversation with Judge Schimel.
An early bellwether
The political ramifications could be felt sooner than 2026, however. Politicians in both parties often keep an eye on Wisconsin’s judicial races as an early bellwether. So far, Republican lawmakers have been very hesitant to break with Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk as the two slash federal programs and lay off tens of thousands of federal workers. But a loss in one of the country’s most important battlegrounds could give them some incentive to rethink their lockstep approach – and potentially slow down Mr. Trump’s congressional agenda.
Conversely, if Democrats can’t win in Wisconsin when the wind should be at their backs, that’s a deeply ominous sign for their party.
Democrats have typically outperformed Republicans in non-presidential elections during the Trump era. As their electoral coalition has shifted to highly educated, highly engaged voters, they’ve done better in lower turnout elections. In 2023, when control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was at stake in another race that turned into a proxy fight over abortion, liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz won by an 11-point margin.
That race was, at the time, the most expensive and hard-fought in state history. But the high-stakes race is now being eclipsed by this one. Early voting turnout is up nearly 50% from this point in the 2023 race, according to the Wisconsin Election Commission.
The two sides have already spent more than $80 million combined, and total spending is on track to surpass $100 million. That’s roughly double what the 2023 race cost — and more in line with what Senate and governor’s races cost.
Strategists on both sides say Judge Crawford has had a lead – but that the race has recently tightened as Mr. Musk and other conservatives have ramped up their spending. The consensus is that the election will be close, though most expect Judge Crawford will have the edge.
TV ads have largely focused on law-and-order issues, with both sides painting the other as soft on crime.
“I think the race will come down to where people stand on crime issues,” says Wisconsin Republican Rep. Glenn Grothman.
A referendum on Trump and Musk?
But both sides have increasingly been treating the race as a referendum on Mr. Trump and Mr. Musk. The Democratic Party has been attacking Mr. Musk in mail and digital ads aimed at its base voters, and in recent days launched TV attack ads focused on him. Judge Schimel’s latest TV ad focuses on Mr. Trump’s endorsement. Mr. Musk’s group, which is also heavily invested in field operations, has explicitly said its goal is to turn out more Trump voters than in the 2023 race.
Mr. Musk is not the only big donor. Illinois Democratic Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave the Wisconsin Democratic Party $500,000 for the race, and Democratic megadonor George Soros chipped in $1 million. Marquee names have stumped for both judges, including Donald Trump Jr. for Judge Schimel and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz for Judge Crawford.
But nearly half the money on the GOP side has come from Mr. Musk, who has dropped roughly $18 million and counting into the campaign, between a $2 million direct donation to the Wisconsin Republican Party, more than $8 million from his America PAC super PAC, and nearly that much in TV reservations from Building America’s Future, another group Mr. Musk launched last year.
In a recent memo, Building America’s Future senior adviser Andrew Romeo said that the late deluge of pro-Schimel spending had helped close a large gap in the race. “There is more work to be done if Schimel is to pull off what would be a historic upset, but we believe we are within the margin of error,” he wrote.
Mr. Musk’s America PAC is also offering $100 to any Wisconsin voter who signs a petition opposing “activist judges” – a way to collect conservative voter data for get-out-the-vote efforts before this and subsequent elections.
This race may well determine whether abortion remains legal in Wisconsin. Right now, abortion is allowed in most cases up until 20 weeks of pregnancy, but the state Supreme Court is currently considering a case on whether an 1849 law banning abortion should be reinstated.
But Representative Grothman says he doesn’t think abortion is as powerful an issue in this race as it had been in recent years.
“People are about abortioned out, with the ads they’ve seen in the last three years in Wisconsin. So I don’t think it’s going to play as much of a role as that has in the past,” the Republican lawmaker says.
But beyond substantive state issues, the widest, most immediate impact will be on the national political vibes.
“It’s bigger than big. It’s huge,” says Brandon Scholz, a former Republican Wisconsin political strategist.
If Mr. Schimel wins, it will be seen as an “endorsement of Trump’s victory in November [that] fortifies his position,” Mr. Scholz says. On the other hand, if Ms. Crawford wins, it would send a signal “that Trump has got some problems, and that those problems … [are working] themselves back into the states.”
Note: This story has been updated to include the latest campaign TV advertising.
