Musk tries and fails to buy Wisconsin Election & Democrats outperform
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Following the 2023 election of Janet Protasiewicz (a liberal judge supported by democrats), the long-standing 4 to 3 conservative majority of Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court flipped to the liberals, who, after the election, enjoyed a slim one-seat majority on the court for the first time in decades.
The implications were wide-ranging. The new liberal majority overturned the heavily gerrymandered election maps, which gave republicans super-majorities in the state house and senate despite losing elections. It replaced them with new & fair maps. Additionally, the court worked to protect abortion access in the state against anti-abortion activists.
Last nights election: Musk gives millions to voters
So when a liberal justice decided not to run for re-election, conservatives and republicans saw their chance to retake control of the court, since they only needed to win one seat to flip the majority in a state Donald Trump carried by 0.9% in 2024. It was their chance to re-introduce unfair election maps and ban abortion, but the liberal candidate, Judge Susan Crawford, was leading in the polls against conservative Brad Schimel.
Then Elon Musk got interested in the race. The world’s richest man and Trump ally spend almost 20 million dollars to support the conservative candidate. His most questionable involvement came when he offered voters the chance to win one million dollars if they signed his petition against “activist judges”. It’s a method to boost engagement in an off-year election, where Trump supporters who pay little attention to politics are more likely to stay home. The signatures in the petition can be used by Musk to target Trump supporters and to turn out their votes. Critics call this kind of meddling, which Musk already used during the 2024 presidential election a form of vote buying. The Democrats started to fear that the billionaire could “buy” the election in which their candidate was favored.
Why was the liberal/democratic candidate favored to win in a swing state like Wisconsin?
Off year elections tend to favor Democrats as their voters are now more educated and informed and therefore also more favored to participate in low turnout elections that take place on days where no presidential or midterm election is held. In 2023 the Democratic/liberal candidate won by about 10%.
Wisconsin voters defy Musk
So when Wisconsin voted yesterday, Washington awaited the results with much suspense. Wisconsin’s judicial election was no longer a race with implications for the state. It was seen as a referendum on Trump and Musk and their ability to “buy” votes. It also had become the country's most expansive state supreme court race ever.
Liberal Susan Crawford won the election with a margin of almost 10% in a vote that showed defiance to Musk. Her election secured the liberal majority of the court and with that also the state's fair election maps and abortion access.
The election once again proved that Democrats now do better with lower turnout, but yesterday also showed signs of wavering support for Trump and Republicans in an election held in Florida.
Democrats land a surprise in Florida
The election to replace former congressman Mike Waltz who became Trump's national security adviser (yes, the guy who added the journalist to the war chat group) was won by republican candidate Randy Fine.
But that’s not the big headline of last night, because Fine only won by 14% in the district Waltz carried by 33% last November. It is the next election where Democrats outperformed, this time by almost 20%. It also led Trump’s team to pull back Elisa Stefanik's nomination to be the ambassador to the UN, as she would have to leave her Trump +23% seat in Congress, which would have set up a closer election, endangering the already slim Republican majority.
After tonight Democrats seem to have gathered new hope because they know that since 2000, the party that outperformed in special elections won control of the House of Representatives in the midterms every single time.
If this trend holds, Democrats are looking at bright 2026 midterm elections, which could put them in a position to block Trump’s agenda or even set up a third impeachment.