Elon Musk failed in his gambit to manipulate the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This month, voters in that state roundly rejected his conservative agenda candidate Brad Schimel and instead elected Democratic-backed Susan Crawford to office.
Despite donning a cheese hat for the press and spending over $21 million – not including the $1 million checks he personally delivered to two voters in Green Bay, Wisconsin – Musk and his affiliated PACS could not outright buy the election.
Rather, Donald Trump and Musk-endorsed candidate Brad Schimel lost in a statewide race with a historic voter turnout of 52%.
Musk and Schimel isolate many Trump voters
Schimel campaigned on being tough on crime, supporting law enforcement and “ending the madness” of the “liberal” majority in the state Supreme Court. These politics similar to those of Trump, who narrowly won the state in the 2024 presidential election.
Many Trump voters, however, responded with a growing disdain of what some have called “vote buying” by Musk. The president’s billionaire advisor was largely lambasted after offering $100 to Wisconsin voters to petition against “activist judges.”
Even with Musk’s costly intervention, Schimel lost by over 10 percentage points to Crawford. This means that the court will remain under liberal control. For the first time in 15 years the court flipped to a liberal majority with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023.
Major cases in the next term could overturn the 1849 abortion ban and Act 10, which limits collective bargaining for state employees. Many Wisconsin voters turned out in this election in hopes that a liberal majority on the Supreme Court would secure victories for the people in these areas. Among Crawford’s endorsers were the Wisconsin AFL-CIO, representing the unions in that state, and Planned Parenthood.
The working people of Wisconsin made it clear that they want collective bargaining rights, abortion rights, and redistricting of congressional maps to break the stronghold of conservatives in the legislature.
We can’t rely on judges to secure our rights!
This election result is a victory for the people. It should not be seen as proof that the existing electoral and judicial system, or the Democratic Party, can be relied upon to work on behalf of the people.
Instead, this outcome shows that the masses of working people, when they collectively assert their strength, have the power to make change. The people of Wisconsin need a mass movement to force the Supreme Court to restore and expand workers’ rights.
Photo: Common Cause Wisconsin
