Elon Musk traded his “dark MAGA” hat for a cheesehead Sunday as he headlined a rally in Green Bay, searching for to tilt Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election Tuesday to conservative Brad Schimel. This election is “an excellent large deal,” the tech billionaire advised a crowd. “I think this will be important for the future of civilization,” he added, as he handed out million-dollar checks to voters who had signed pledges in opposition to “activist judges.”
Musk, who has been decimating the federal authorities on behalf of Donald Trump as the top of the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, has emerged as a primary character within the race between Schimel, a Waukesha County choose backed by Trump, and Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, who was endorsed by former President Barack Obama final week. The state-level race will decide the partisan lean of the swing state’s excessive court docket and carries huge—if not essentially civilization-altering—implications. Not solely might the Tuesday election decide the way forward for abortion rights, collective bargaining rights, and different issues for Wisconsinites; but it surely might additionally, as Musk himself famous at his Sunday rally, decide the state’s congressional map forward of subsequent yr’s midterms, when Republicans will likely be searching for to broaden their majority and Democrats will attempt to acquire again any potential to train some legislative examine on the Trump administration. “They will try to stop all the government reforms we are getting done for you,” Musk advised his city corridor, “the American people.”
Of course, Trump’s energy seize has unsettled even some Republicans—not that they’re ready to do something about it—and Musk’s purge has been much more unpopular, with the DOGE chief polling 10 factors under the president in a CNN survey this month. While the race is nominally non-partisan, Democrats in Wisconsin and past are hoping the state Supreme Court contest might deal a blow to Musk. With the cash and political capital he’s put into the race, he’s testing his standing as a right-wing kingmaker. If Crawford prevails, it might “make clear that voters will reject Musk and Musk’s tactics so that we don’t create an incentive for him to keep rampaging through every level of American politics,” as Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler advised me final week. “If Musk succeeds in buying the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Wikler stated, “then he’s going to bring exactly these same obscene tactics and ludicrous quantities of money to every future race.”
Musk has put almost $20 million into this traditionally costly race, one with an $81 million price ticket that far eclipses the roughly $56 million that made Wisconsin’s final Supreme Court race in 2023 the most expensive judicial race ever—during which Janet Protasiewicz swung the bench 4-3 in favor of the liberals. The large cash—a consequence, as Megan O’Matz famous in ProPublica final week, of the state voting ten years in the past to approve limitless marketing campaign spending—is distasteful sufficient by itself. But Musk’s stunt of writing million-dollar checks to a handful of voters who signed a pledge from his PAC is particularly grotesque, if not outright unlawful, as Democrats have alleged. (Josh Kaul, the state’s Democratic lawyer normal, challenged the Musk giveaways, however the state Supreme Court declined to listen to the case.)
Democrats have framed their proxy marketing campaign in opposition to Musk as a form of David and Goliath battle—however they’ve some Goliaths on their facet, too. Billionaires George Soros and JB Pritzker, the governor of neighboring Illinois, have spent large on the election. And the Democratic National Committee has gone all out, even placing out full-page advertisements concentrating on Musk in ten Sunday newspapers throughout the state. “Schimel has an anti-freedom, anti-health care agenda that will put billionaires like Musk ahead of working families,” DNC Chair Ken Martin stated in an announcement to Vanity Fair. “Every Wisconsin voter can send a message to Musk and the country that our elections aren’t for sale by voting for Susan Crawford and other candidates that will move Wisconsin forward.”
To Democrats, the election is a chance to take among the shine off Musk with Republicans. “If Musk turns out to be politically toxic, we can see Republicans trying to distance themselves from him as rapidly as possible,” Wikler advised me. “Which would be good for America, because every day that he has unlimited power, with no check from Congress, is a bad day for democracy.”
But the race can be the primary likelihood for Democrats to begin resuscitating their very own occasion, which stays dispirited and disarrayed following their November defeat. A Crawford win, Wikler advised me, “could put new steel in Democratic spines across the country, and inspire Democrats to fight back even harder.” That battle will likely be a slog—particularly for Wisconsinites, who can stay up for state Supreme Court elections for every of the following six years, as the opposite justices hit their time period limits.