The Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Is a Referendum on Elon Musk – Mother Jones

“If you are concerned about what Elon Musk and Donald Trump are doing to this country, to this state, and to this county, raise your hand,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler told a meeting of Democrats in Sauk County, Wisconsin, on March 6.

Practically every hand went up. “I’m detecting some potential unanimity to this question,” Wikler deadpanned.

More than 170 Democratic activists had gathered at the public library in Sauk City, a small town in a quintessential swing county in the southern part of the state, to counteract Musk’s attempt to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court election and tip the balance of power on the court.

Two groups backed by Musk, the conservative group Building America’s Future and his own America PAC, have spent more than $10 million attacking progressive judge Susan Crawford and supporting the Trump-aligned candidate Brad Schimel in an April 1 election that will determine the 4-3 ideological majority on the state’s highest court. “Elon Musk has now plowed more money into this Supreme Court race then as far as I can tell any donor ever has in any Wisconsin judicial election,” Wikler said in Sauk City.

Even before Musk turned his attention to Wisconsin, the stakes were high for the court. After a new progressive majority won control in April 2023, ending 15 years of hard-edged conservative rule, they struck down the gerrymandered maps that had given Republicans lopsided majorities in the state legislature for over a decade. The court could soon consider the fate of the state’s 1849 abortion ban, a law restricting collective bargaining for public sector unions (known as Act 10), and the legality of Wisconsin’s congressional maps.

“They want to gerrymander our state again,” State Senate Democratic Leader Dianne Hesselbein said in Sauk City. “They want all of us to go back to 1849 as Brad Schimel continues to support the abortion ban. They want to hurt workers. They want to keep Act 10 on the books.”

But Musk’s involvement has turned what could have been a sleepy off-year election at a time when many Democrats are still reeling from Trump’s second takeover of Washington into a race with major national significance. A victory by Democrats and their allies would strike the first tangible blow against the Trump-Musk alliance and provide a blueprint for how to run against Trump’s allies in closely divided states that narrowly voted for Trump in November. On the other hand, a Republican victory would embolden Musk to spend ever greater amounts of money not just to dismantle the federal government but to take control of key swing states, allowing Republicans to further weaponize core democratic institutions. It’s not an overstatement to say that the fate of democracy is on the line in Wisconsin in three weeks.

“The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is the first referendum on Musk-ism,” Wikler told me. “So many Democrats feel this deep fear combined with an incandescent fury at what’s happening to the country, and they want an outlet that allows them to fight back. This Supreme Court race, for Wisconsinites and for Democrats everywhere who might be able to donate or volunteer, gives people who believe in democracy a chance to defeat the oligarchs who are trying to end democracy for good.”

Musk’s money—and that of other large donors—is certainly an advantage for the Republican side. Spending on the race has already passed $43 million, according to data compiled by Douglas Keith of the Brennan Center for Justice, and close to 60 percent of that spending has supported Schimel. According to recent polling, both candidates are relatively unknown, with 58 percent of the public saying they don’t know enough about Crawford, a circuit court judge in Madison’s Dane County, to form an opinion of her. That gives Republicans an opening to negatively define Crawford; outside groups, including those funded by Musk, have already run a slew of ads accusing her of being soft on crime, nicknaming the judge “Catch ‘N Release Crawford.”

“At this point, there is more funding on the right than there is for supporting Susan Crawford,” Wikler admitted on a recent press call. That’s a reversal from the last state supreme court election in April 2023, when progressive candidate Janet Protasiewicz, who won by 11 points, had a major financial advantage.

But Democrats are working to turn a liability into an advantage by tying Schimel to Musk at every turn. “We have to make sure when we’re talking to people we connect Elon Musk with Brad Schimel and with Donald Trump,” said Susan Knower, chair of the Sauk County Democrats.

In a recent poll, 53 percent of Wisconsinites disapproved of Musk, with a whopping 97 percent of Democrats viewing him unfavorably. “We can see in our own polling and testing that there’s just a tidal wave of fury at Musk and Trump for what they’re doing to the country,” Wikler says.

Though right-wing money is pouring into the race at an unprecedented level, Wikler says Democrats have already contacted twice as many voters as they did during Protasiewicz’s race. That’s especially notable when many Democrats are angry at Democratic leaders in Washington for not doing enough to resist how Trump and Musk are taking a wrecking ball to the federal government.

“The grassroots does not want conciliation with the people who are punching them in the face,” Wikler says. “They want to fight back. And if we win, we’ll be able to show the whole country that there’s a path for Democrats to fight back.”

Though Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are ostensibly nonpartisan, Schimel, a judge in suburban Milwaukee and a former state attorney general, is running an unapologetically MAGA campaign. He attended Trump’s inauguration, claimed the January 6 insurrectionists did not receive fair trials, and said he’d welcome Trump’s endorsement. He’s embraced election denialism, telling supporters that “the Wisconsin Supreme Court screwed [Trump] over” by keeping a Green Party candidate off the ballot in 2020 and declined to say whether he would have voted to overturn the 2020 election (the court came one vote short of doing so).

Schimel has praised Musk’s involvement in the race and urged other large donors to intervene on his behalf. He told the right-wing group Turning Point USA that he is running for the court to provide a “support network” for Trump and combat the lawsuits against his administration. “Frankly, our donor base is excited about this chance to take this court back,” he told a conservative talk radio show.

Musk has also amplified election disinformation. He first mentioned the race on X in January, writing that it was “very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” He was referencing a Wisconsin Supreme Court decision in July 2024 reinstating mail-in ballot drop boxes, even though there is no evidence that the use of drop boxes has led to voter fraud.

He may also have more self-interested reasons for getting involved. His January tweet came a week after Tesla sued the state for ruling that it could not open car dealerships in Wisconsin. The Wisconsin Supreme Court could theoretically one day hear that case. “This is a democracy crisis layered on top of plain old corruption,” says Wikler.

Wisconsin Democrats recently launched a seven-figure campaign called “The People v. Musk” that includes digital ads (picturing Musk taking a chainsaw to popular government programs), billboards that show Musk next to Schimel with the caption, “Don’t Let Elon Buy Our Court,” and town halls in places like Sauk City. In a lower-turnout election, Musk may be just what Democrats need to persuade their voters, who are still in various states of depression, anguish, and rage, to get to the polls.

“We’ll find out when the votes are counted,” Wikler says, “whether Musk’s millions are more powerful than the fury that Musk provokes among voters.”