Judge Susan Crawford maintained the narrow progressive majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court by defeating conservative Brad Schimel on Tuesday, but the big loser of the election was billionaire Elon Musk and in some way also Donald Trump.
Musk and his affiliated groups invested at least 21 million dollars in this typically low-profile campaign, and paid three individual voters one million dollars each to sign a petition, in an effort to increase voter turnout in the crucial state election.
Many critics view this action by the South African businessman directly as an attempt to “buy votes”.
This made the election the first major test of Musk’s political impact, who has gained relevance in President Donald Trump’s government with his chaotic cost-cutting initiative through DOGE, which has trimmed federal agencies.
Crawford’s victory in Wisconsin
Crawford and the Democrats who supported her made Musk the focus of their arguments to keep the position, alleging that he was “buying” the elections, which set records as the most expensive judicial campaign in history.
“Today the residents of Wisconsin defended an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections, and our Supreme Court. And Wisconsin stood up and loudly proclaimed that justice is priceless, our courts are not for sale,” Crawford stated in his victory speech.
Trump also backed Schimel when the campaign turned into a power struggle over national political issues. The state’s high court can rule on cases involving voting rights and redistricting in a state that is likely to be crucial in both next year’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential elections.
But Musk’s participation took those dynamics to the maximum.
“A seemingly small choice could determine the fate of Western civilization,” said the billionaire on Tuesday in a last-minute call to voters on his social network X. “I believe it matters for the future of the world.”
In particular, America PAC, the platform backed by Musk, spent at least six million dollars on providers who sent door-to-door surveyors throughout the state, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a non-partisan group. It was a repeat of what the group did in the seven most competitive states in the presidential election, like Wisconsin, where Trump won in November.
This time, in addition to the million-dollar checks, Musk offered to pay $20 to anyone who signed up on his group’s website to knock on doors for Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof. His organization promised $100 to each voter who signed the petition against progressive judges and another $100 for each person they referred who also signed.
But this time the final results were not good for Musk. Despite the millions he spent on Schimel, by Tuesday night the Supreme Court candidate was losing by four percentage points more than the other Republican-backed candidate at the state level, Brittany Kinser, who also failed in her attempt to become superintendent of public instruction.
Musk’s defeat in the campaign for the court was not only due to the overwhelming margins in deeply Democratic cities like Madison and Milwaukee. Crawford’s margins were higher in places where the Musk-backed America PAC group had operated, such as Sauk County, just north of Madison, which Crawford won by 10 points after Trump had won it by less than two points in November.
In Brown County, home to Green Bay and where Musk led a campaign rally with 2,000 people on Sunday, Crawford defeated Schimel. Trump won the county by seven percentage points last year.
The usually loquacious Musk remained silent on his X platform following Crawford’s victory.
The Democratic Attorney General of Wisconsin, Josh Kaul, filed a lawsuit to prevent Musk from making payments to voters if they signed a petition against “activist judges.” The state Supreme Court unanimously refused to rule on the case for technical reasons.
The Republicans did win in Florida
The Republican Party, this time without relying on Elon Musk, had better luck in the special elections to choose representatives for the Lower House in Florida.
Randy Fine won the special election in the 6th District to replace the controversial Mike Waltz, who resigned to become a national security advisor to Trump. However, Fine defeated his Democratic opponent, Josh Weil, by 14 percentage points less than five months after Waltz won the district by 33.
In turn, Republican Jimmy Patronis, the state’s chief financial officer, defeated Democrat Gay Valimont by a smaller margin than in November for the vacant northwest Florida seat left by Matt Gaetz, who resigned to become attorney general, but a series of accusations forced Trump to withdraw the nomination.
The pair of victories gives Republicans a 220-213 margin in the House of Representatives, as concerns about a thin Republican majority led Trump to withdraw the nomination of New York Representative Elise Stefanik to be the ambassador to the United Nations.