Backlash to Musk fuels liberal victory in Wisconsin

Despite spending more than $25 million on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election, tech billionaire Elon Musk’s efforts to tip the scale for the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, proved futile.

Instead, Susan Crawford, the left-leaning option on the ballot, handily defeated Schimel, with the former receiving 55% of the vote. In total, the race cost $90 million, making it the priciest judicial race in American history.

The ideological makeup of the court will now stay tilted towards the left, with four of the seven seats now being filled by liberal-leaning judges. With three conservative justices up for election next, the court will likely remain liberal until at least 2030.

"We've always known Brad Schimel is a bad candidate — he wants to take Wisconsin back to 1849 with an extreme abortion ban,” Derrick Honeyman, spokesperson for Susan Crawford's campaign, said just before Election Day. 

"But it turns out that Schimel is such a bad candidate that Elon Musk will spend whatever it takes to prop up Schimel's failing campaign in a corrupt attempt to buy influence on the Supreme Court for his company's lawsuit. It's corrupt, it's extreme and it's disgraceful to our state and judiciary."

The contest was also the first notable state election of the second Trump term and a much-needed seachange for Democrats, who have been struggling to reckon with their loss in last year’s presidential race. Indeed, both Musk and President Donald Trump seemed uniquely preoccupied with the results. Musk claimed last Sunday, in his typically embellished fashion, that the election would impact "the entire destiny of humanity."

And from his Truth Social social media platform, Trump had warned that a Crawford win would undermine his presidential agenda. 

“[Crawford] is the handpicked voice of the Leftists who are out to destroy your State, and our Country — And if she wins, the Movement to restore our Nation will bypass Wisconsin,” he wrote on March 21. “All Voters who believe in Common Sense should GET OUT TO VOTE EARLY for Brad Schimel.” 

Musk’s failures could be a sign of things to come: Today, it was disclosed that Musk’s tenure as a “special government employee” may be coming to an end.

“Many close to Trump are increasingly relieved that Musk is expected to soon move on from his central role at Trump’s side,” Politico reported. 

However, the political tea leaves are once again obscured by the mercurial nature of the American voter. While Crawford handily defeated Schimel, another issue was present on the ballot, cementing the state’s strict voter ID law into the constitution, which was confirmed by 62% of Wisconsin voters. Even though the state has required valid identification to vote for more than a decade, the GOP-written referendum would make it more difficult for a Democratic majority to overturn it should they regain control of the legislature in the future.