Elon Musk Goes Bust
Democrats easily won a competitive and much-heralded Supreme Court contest in Wisconsin, where the liberal candidate they backed triumphed over a conservative supported by Elon Musk. It’s a humiliating result for the world’s richest man after spending heavily and campaigning personally in the state for conservative Brad Schimel, who was tied to the DOGE leader’s large and controversial role in the Trump administration. Susan Crawford won by 10 points and consolidated liberal control of a crucial battleground state court.
The Wisconsin race was the most expensive judicial contest in American history by a large margin, with nearly $100 million spent. Groups aligned with Musk represented over $20 million of that total. But money aside, Musk all but took over poor Schimel’s campaign, as the New York Times reported a couple of days before the vote:
He brought a billionaire friend, $1 million checks and a Packers cheesehead hat. A pastor prayed for him. A superfan begged him for a follow on X.
Elon Musk was the star of a 2,000-person rally on Sunday night in Wisconsin — ostensibly for the conservative candidate in a closely watched state judicial race — just 36 hours before polls open on Election Day. Of course he was.
The billionaire Mr. Musk looked very much like a candidate at this rally, putting himself front and center in the final stretch of an election pitting two rivals against each other, neither of them named Elon Musk.
Musk not only personalized the Wisconsin race: he also boosted the stakes, saying at one point that “the entire destiny of humanity” rested on winning there. Without much question, his involvement helped energize Democrats, who saw a rare opportunity to take the arrogant tech bro down a notch or two. Musk’s profile was nearly as galvanizing as the abortion issue that helped the liberal candidate win in the last Wisconsin Supreme Court election in 2023, which overturned a conservative majority on the court. Turnout was again high for this kind of election, with over 2 million votes cast (not far off the 2022 midterms, and about two-thirds of the vote cast in the red-hot 2024 presidential race).
The results could help produce progressive rulings in a variety of Wisconsin cases and perhaps even lead to a re-redistricting of congressional districts benefiting Democrats. Wisconsin Republicans consoled themselves with the overwhelming approval of a constitutional amendment embedding a voter ID requirement.
Tuesday featured the first major election contests of 2025 and Republicans fared better in Florida where they held two vacant House seats as expected, winning both by 14 points. The margins were reduced from recent elections in part thanks to the same sort of Democratic grassroots energy that powered Crawford’s victory and filled the coffers of candidates in the Sunshine State. The 1st district, previously represented by MAGA bad-boy and momentary Attorney General nominee Matt Gaetz, has elected Randy Fine, though with less than half the margin Gaetz won in 2024. The 6th district will be represented by Jimmy Patronis, who also fell over 30 points short of the margin won in 2024 by National Security Advisor and Signal power-user Michael Waltz. Turnout in both contests was healthy if not astounding: about two-thirds of the numbers posted in 2022, and about 40 percent of 2024 levels.
We’ll have to see if Musk’s face-plant in Wisconsin affects his standing in Washington. Trump doesn’t like losers and does enjoy shifting blame for adverse political trends. The liberal win could sharpen knives in Republican and White House circles already concerned about Musk’s sagging approval ratings and regularly outrageous utterances. At a minimum, it’s unlikely he’ll make any more appearances strutting around with a chainsaw or saluting with a stiff arm outward.
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