People move about the Guilford County Democratic Party headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Nov. 7, 2022. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The Democratic National Committee will transfer more than $1 million per month to its state and territorial parties over the next four years in an effort to build state-level infrastructure and operations, the DNC announced Thursday.
The agreement marks the DNC’s largest total investment in Democratic state parties to date and comes as Democrats try to rebound from significant losses in the 2024 election cycle.
Each state party is set to receive a minimum of $17,500 per month, a $5,000 increase from the current baseline, the DNC said in materials provided to States Newsroom ahead of the wider announcement.
Republican-controlled states will get an additional $5,000 a month, bringing their monthly total to $22,500. The GOP-controlled states will get that additional investment through the DNC’s Red State Fund.
The DNC’s definition for a GOP-controlled state is one that meets at least two of the three criteria: no Democratic governor or Democratic U.S. Senator; one-quarter or less of the congressional delegation is made up of Democrats; and Republicans hold supermajorities in both state legislative chambers.
As part of the agreement, the DNC said it will host six regional training “bootcamps” for state parties per two-year cycle and will also hire new staff to the Association of State Democratic Committees.
The DNC said the initiative also aims to help Democratic state parties with their infrastructure, staffing, data and tech operations as well as with organizing programs and preparation for future election cycles.
DNC Chair Ken Martin, the former Minnesota party chair who was elected to lead the national party in February, called the initiative “a historic political investment unlike anything Democrats have done in modern times” and said in a statement it is part of a long-term strategy.
“We’re putting our money where our mouth is to equip state parties with what they need to reach working families who deserve better, build long-term success all across the ballot, and gain electoral ground for years to come,” Martin said in the statement.
“Elections are won in states — and that’s exactly where we will be investing our resources,” said Martin.
Last week, Martin laid out the leadership board’s organizing principles, which centered on “organizing early, organizing always, organizing everywhere, and winning everywhere.”
“You’re going to continue to witness a level of aggressive investment and organizing from this DNC that’s unlike anything we’ve done before,” Martin wrote in that memo.
In a Thursday statement, Jane Kleeb, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees and chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said “state parties are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and through this investment, our state parties will receive the support they need to show voters that, no matter where they live, there is a strong Democratic Party in their corner, protecting their rights and economic opportunity against Republican attacks.”
20 years later
The strategy bears some resemblance to the 50-state strategy pioneered by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who led the DNC from 2005 to 2009 and appeared on a DNC press call Thursday.
“This is a really critical move that’s being made here,” Dean said. “We have not been anything but a Washington, D.C.-centric party since 2008, and the reason that the Democrats have had a tough time is because if you’re not out there doing the grassroots politics, you don’t win. Period.”
Critics during Dean’s tenure argued that spending in deep-red areas pulled resources away from winnable races in more moderate states and congressional districts.
Asked on the press call whether the push to spread money to more states could lead to a decline in financial support to swing states, Martin said, “No, not at all.”
“I mean, as I said, there’s no such thing as a perpetual blue state or a perpetual red state, and over the years, because there’s been a lack of investment in blue states, as an example, by other partners in the ecosystem, not necessarily the DNC, it’s meant we’ve seen actually our vote share in some of the bluest parts of the country actually starting to decrease,” he said.
“I believe you have to invest everywhere and organize everywhere if you want to win everywhere, and so, that’s what this will do.”
People move about the Guilford County Democratic Party headquarters in Greensboro, North Carolina, on Nov. 7, 2022. (Photo by Sean Rayford/Getty Images)
The Democratic National Committee will transfer more than $1 million per month to its state and territorial parties over the next four years in an effort to build state-level infrastructure and operations, the DNC announced Thursday.
The agreement marks the DNC’s largest total investment in Democratic state parties to date and comes as Democrats try to rebound from significant losses in the 2024 election cycle.
Each state party is set to receive a minimum of $17,500 per month, a $5,000 increase from the current baseline, the DNC said in materials provided to States Newsroom ahead of the wider announcement.
Republican-controlled states will get an additional $5,000 a month, bringing their monthly total to $22,500. The GOP-controlled states will get that additional investment through the DNC’s Red State Fund.
The DNC’s definition for a GOP-controlled state is one that meets at least two of the three criteria: no Democratic governor or Democratic U.S. Senator; one-quarter or less of the congressional delegation is made up of Democrats; and Republicans hold supermajorities in both state legislative chambers.
As part of the agreement, the DNC said it will host six regional training “bootcamps” for state parties per two-year cycle and will also hire new staff to the Association of State Democratic Committees.
The DNC said the initiative also aims to help Democratic state parties with their infrastructure, staffing, data and tech operations as well as with organizing programs and preparation for future election cycles.
DNC Chair Ken Martin, the former Minnesota party chair who was elected to lead the national party in February, called the initiative “a historic political investment unlike anything Democrats have done in modern times” and said in a statement it is part of a long-term strategy.
“We’re putting our money where our mouth is to equip state parties with what they need to reach working families who deserve better, build long-term success all across the ballot, and gain electoral ground for years to come,” Martin said in the statement.
“Elections are won in states — and that’s exactly where we will be investing our resources,” said Martin.
Last week, Martin laid out the leadership board’s organizing principles, which centered on “organizing early, organizing always, organizing everywhere, and winning everywhere.”
“You’re going to continue to witness a level of aggressive investment and organizing from this DNC that’s unlike anything we’ve done before,” Martin wrote in that memo.
In a Thursday statement, Jane Kleeb, president of the Association of State Democratic Committees and chair of the Nebraska Democratic Party, said “state parties are the backbone of the Democratic Party, and through this investment, our state parties will receive the support they need to show voters that, no matter where they live, there is a strong Democratic Party in their corner, protecting their rights and economic opportunity against Republican attacks.”
20 years later
The strategy bears some resemblance to the 50-state strategy pioneered by former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, who led the DNC from 2005 to 2009 and appeared on a DNC press call Thursday.
“This is a really critical move that’s being made here,” Dean said. “We have not been anything but a Washington, D.C.-centric party since 2008, and the reason that the Democrats have had a tough time is because if you’re not out there doing the grassroots politics, you don’t win. Period.”
Critics during Dean’s tenure argued that spending in deep-red areas pulled resources away from winnable races in more moderate states and congressional districts.
Asked on the press call whether the push to spread money to more states could lead to a decline in financial support to swing states, Martin said, “No, not at all.”
“I mean, as I said, there’s no such thing as a perpetual blue state or a perpetual red state, and over the years, because there’s been a lack of investment in blue states, as an example, by other partners in the ecosystem, not necessarily the DNC, it’s meant we’ve seen actually our vote share in some of the bluest parts of the country actually starting to decrease,” he said.
“I believe you have to invest everywhere and organize everywhere if you want to win everywhere, and so, that’s what this will do.”
The co-founder of Wisconsin’s progressive, pro-democracy law firm is not ignoring the tsunami of bad news out of Washington. He’s just not letting it drown his optimism.
Jeff Mandell | Photo courtesy of Law Forward
“I don’t think any of us fully anticipated how heavy, broad, fast and extreme the onslaught was going to be,” Jeff Mandell concedes, referring to President Donald Trump’s moves to seize unprecedented power, weaponize the federal government against his political enemies, defy court orders, deport people without due process and throw the entire global economy into chaos.
“Some of what we are seeing and hearing is so contrary to our most fundamental understanding of what we believe about our government, I have to believe this is temporary and that people won’t stand for it,” Mandell says.
Since its founding in October 2020, Law Forward has pursued high-profile lawsuits that have helped claw back democracy in Wisconsin. The firm challenged the state’s now-defunct gerrymandered voting maps and uncovered the details of the fake electors scheme that originated here — forcing the Republican officials who posed as members of the Electoral College and cast fraudulent votes for Trump in 2020 to admit they were trying to subvert the will of the voters. On the public website it created to display the details of the scheme, which it obtained as a condition of a settlement, Law Forward stated that it wanted to show “how close our democracy came to toppling and how the freedom to vote must continue to be protected, not taken for granted.”
This week, Law Forward’s grievance against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for misconduct in his ill-conceived “investigation” of voter fraud in the 2020 election led to the suspension of Gableman’s law license.
As a Wisconsin-based organization, Mandell says Law Forward looks for opportunities to pursue cases that are of particular importance to the state and that shine a light on threats to democracy.
“The rest of the time we don’t sit in paralysis because of the news,” he adds. Whatever fresh hell is erupting across the country, “we continue to work here so people see an alternative.”
“I think building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance,” he adds.
“When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level,” at the state and local level, Mandell says, “we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance.”
Even before Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel last week in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — despite the heavy-handed intervention of Trump and Elon Musk — Mandell was feeling hopeful. He felt Wisconsin showed a “silver lining” after the November 2024 election, despite Trump’s narrow win in the state.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford thanks supporters after winning the race Tuesday for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Among his reasons for optimism: New, fair voting maps that replaced the old Republican gerrymander, creating a more balanced Legislature; a governor who supports voting rights and democratic institutions; extraordinarily high voter engagement, with Wisconsinites turning out in bigger numbers than in other states in 2024 and overwhelmingly rejecting the MAGA-backed Supreme Court candidate in 2025.
With Crawford’s win, “Wisconsin will continue to be a place where we can rely on the courts to protect our fundamental freedoms,” Mandell says.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
The 10-point margin in last week’s election also “reinforces my conviction that the majority of Wisconsinites really do believe in democracy,” Mandell says.
All of those things position Wisconsin to be a leader in the struggle to protect democracy from the Trump onslaught.
Wisconsin’s long march to recovery from misrule by Gov. Scott Walker and the rightwing billionaires who backed him has been taking us in the opposite direction from the rest of the country.
Along with his union-busting Act 10 — challenged by Law Forward and soon to be taken up by the Wisconsin Supreme Court — Walker took a sledgehammer to funding for public education, long before Trump and Musk arrived with their chainsaws. Voters here have been pushing back against the billionaire-financed destruction of civil society for more than a decade. Recently, they’ve been gaining traction. Law Forward has played an important role in that fight.
It’s not just that Democrats will pick up more seats in the state Legislature as the un-gerrymandered maps go into full effect next year, Mandell has hope that our closely divided state will maintain its longstanding independence and commitment to bipartisan institutions. He draws encouragement from the fact that Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are holding budget hearings around the state, even as Republicans in Washington ram through a budget based on Trump’s demands, ignoring the public and ceding their power as members of Congress.
Wisconsin’s long tradition of good government includes a host of bipartisan commissions, a decentralized elections system that is hard to hack and a great university that has managed to survive waves of attacks by McCarthyites and budget cutters for 176 years.
That tradition extends to a bipartisan nominating commission for federal judges, which ought to choose a replacement for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, who announced in March that she is taking semi-retirement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office reports it has been in contact with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s office to reconstitute the charter for the bipartisan nominating commission, as they have done in every Congress under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump could still ignore the process and nominate someone on his own. But three weeks after Sykes’ announcement, he hasn’t done it yet.
If Trump wrecks the economy and steers the whole country into a recession, Wisconsin won’t be spared. Nor can we avoid all the shocks of a national authoritarian regime. But our state’s independent democratic institutions leave us well situated to recover, and to help the rest of the country remember what civil society looks like.
“There is no one silver bullet,” says Mandell. “But the goal is to continue to tend the lamp here in Wisconsin, to shine a light that illuminates the path to balance, order and democracy.”
Madison’s city clerk, Maribeth Witzel-Behl, resigned Monday as the city and state continued to look into how she and her staff lost track of nearly 200 ballots that never got counted in November.
Witzel-Behl, who took the post in 2006, gained wide recognition for running elections in the state’s second largest city during the pandemic and multiple presidential elections. In all, she oversaw more than 60 elections.
But her reputation took a blow in the November 2024 election, when 193 ballots from two polling stations went missing on Election Day and never got counted. Clerks and the Wisconsin Elections Commission have criticized her for failing to promptly inform state and city officials about the issue.
“On behalf of city of Madison residents, I want to extend my gratitude to Maribeth for her commitment and dedication to public service,” Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway said.
Witzel-Behl was placed on leave in March, with Mike Haas, the city attorney and former commission administrator, acting as clerk in the interim. It’s unclear who will replace Witzel-Behl; Haas previously told Votebeat he does not want the job permanently. The city is undertaking a national search, officials said.
Madison interim City Clerk Mike Haas, left, acting in the role since Maribeth Witzel-Behl was placed on leave, and Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell, right, address the press at the City-County Building in Madison, Wis., after the spring election on April 1, 2025. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
In addition to ongoing city and state investigations, the November error has also led to legal action, with a liberal election law group seeking $34 million in damages on the grounds voters were disenfranchised.
In its probe, the Wisconsin Elections Commission found that mistakes by the clerk’s office began well before Election Day, including printing poll books for the two polling sites earlier than recommended by the commission.
Had the poll books been printed later, they would have automatically indicated that certain ballots had been returned, making it clearer to poll workers on Election Day that some ballots had been received but not counted.
Clerk’s staff found the first batch of ballots — 68 in total — in a previously unopened courier bag in the clerk’s office on Nov. 12, while Dane County was in the middle of certifying the election.
There are conflicting accounts of what happened next: An unidentified Madison election worker claimed that the county was informed about the ballots that day, but Dane County Clerk Scott McDonell has denied that. Witzel-Behl, who according to records obtained by Votebeat was on vacation for much of the time following Election Day, didn’t follow up with the county, and those ballots were never counted.
A second batch of 125 ballots was discovered in the clerk’s office on Dec. 3. However, staff didn’t relay that information to the Wisconsin Elections Commission until Dec. 18, well after the state certified the election. The commission then notified Haas about the error, and he relayed the news to the mayor’s office — which is when both learned of the problem for the first time.
Facing growing scrutiny, Witzel-Behl proposed procedural changes, including requiring clerk’s staff to verify all election materials received on election night and ensuring that each polling place receives a list of the absentee ballot courier bags it handles to prevent any from being overlooked.
Those measures were implemented fully in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, for which she was on leave. The city apparently didn’t have any significant oversights in that election. City officials say they’re still refining the procedural changes.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
After two high-profile cases in which candidates were unable to remove their names from the ballot, Wisconsin lawmakers are weighing a change to one of the nation’s strictest withdrawal laws.
Under current Wisconsin law, once candidates qualify for the ballot, they can only be removed if they die.
The restriction received renewed attention in August 2024, when Robert F. Kennedy Jr., running as an independent, unsuccessfully sought to withdraw from the Wisconsin presidential ballot — a request that ultimately reached the state Supreme Court.
More recently, in January, Madison Ald. Dina Nina Martinez-Rutherford announced she was dropping out of her reelection race and endorsing her opponent, citing two major life events. Despite her public withdrawal, she remained on the ballot and was reelected in April.
On Tuesday, the Assembly Committee on Campaigns and Elections held a public hearing on the proposal written by Rep. David Steffen, a Republican, to allow candidates for certain statewide, congressional and legislative offices and independent candidates for president and vice president to withdraw from the ballot any time before the Wisconsin Elections Commission certifies candidates’ names.
Steffen said he’s working on an amendment to address concerns raised by election clerks about how the proposal could disrupt tight ballot production timelines.
Calling the current law outdated, Steffen told lawmakers that candidates deserve a straightforward way to remove themselves from consideration before Election Day.
While the bill would not apply to local or off-cycle races like Martinez-Rutherford’s, election clerks say even the limited version could still cause issues. They warned that allowing candidates to withdraw up until the day of certification doesn’t give them enough time to finalize ballots, which are often already in production before that point.
“I have no problem if a candidate wants to remove their name,” Columbia County Clerk Sue Moll, a Republican, said. “I just want to make sure that the timeline is such that we can meet our deadlines.”
Most states provide nominees who wish to drop out of a race some sort of off-ramp. Many states allow nominees to drop off the ballot between 60 and 85 days before an election. Some states require polling places to have notices clarifying candidates’ withdrawal if they drop out after ballots are already printed.
Wisconsin law used to allow nominees to drop off the ballot if they declined to run, but it changed in 1977 to the current policy — allowing withdrawal only in the event of death.
Under the proposal presented on Tuesday, nominees could drop off the ballot anytime before the election commission certifies candidate names.
Processing a candidate’s withdrawal on that last day would put clerks on a “really tight” timeline, Moll said.
Even with a head start to prepare ballots, county clerks are scrambling at the last minute to get their ballots programmed, printed and sent to municipal clerks in time for them to send out by the state’s legal deadline, which is 47 days before a federal election, Moll said.
It would have taken about an extra half-day of work to reprogram everything if Kennedy dropped off the ballot last-minute, she said. It could take more time in counties that rely on vendors to prepare their ballots and program voting equipment, she added.
When a candidate changes his or her mind and drops out, Moll said, “Well, OK, that’s one candidate. What happens if there’s five candidates?”
Rock County Clerk Lisa Tollefson, a Democrat, told Votebeat that clerks would risk going past the deadline for sending out ballots if candidates waited until the last minute to drop out.
If the deadline to withdraw was about a week before the commission certifies candidates’ names, Tollefson said, “we should be OK.”
Rep. David Steffen, R-Howard, listens to testimony during an Assembly committee hearing March 11, 2025, at the State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Steffen, the author of the proposal, said at the Tuesday public hearing that an amendment in the works would do exactly that: Require nominees to withdraw at least seven business days before the Wisconsin Elections Commission meeting to certify nominees. The amendment would require clerks to be notified of a nominee’s withdrawal at least five days before the meeting.
At the hearing, Tollefson said she agrees with the amendment. She told Votebeat that the timelines would still be tight under the amendment, particularly in bigger counties like Milwaukee County and Dane County, but that clerks should be able to get their ballots done in time.
February and April elections don’t have long enough window
Giving nominees a path to withdraw their candidacy for the February and April elections — like the one Martinez-Rutherford won after trying to exit — would be virtually impossible because those elections are run in such a short time span, clerks told Votebeat.
Clerks only have about a week between the February and April elections to prepare their ballots, get them printed and send them out to municipal clerks, Moll said.
If the amended measure becomes law and plays out well, Steffen said he may introduce a separate proposal that addresses local races. But he also acknowledged the tight timelines that clerks face in February and April elections.
Just after the hearing, at the Eastmorland Community Center in Madison, Martinez-Rutherford, the candidate who won a city council seat in April despite informally dropping out of her race, said that she would remain on the council but that it would be “reasonable” to create a process for candidates to formally drop out.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
The co-founder of Wisconsin’s progressive, pro-democracy law firm is not ignoring the tsunami of bad news out of Washington. He’s just not letting it drown his optimism.
Jeff Mandell | Photo courtesy of Law Forward
“I don’t think any of us fully anticipated how heavy, broad, fast and extreme the onslaught was going to be,” Jeff Mandell concedes, referring to President Donald Trump’s moves to seize unprecedented power, weaponize the federal government against his political enemies, defy court orders, deport people without due process and throw the entire global economy into chaos.
“Some of what we are seeing and hearing is so contrary to our most fundamental understanding of what we believe about our government, I have to believe this is temporary and that people won’t stand for it,” Mandell says.
Since its founding in October 2020, Law Forward has pursued high-profile lawsuits that have helped claw back democracy in Wisconsin. The firm challenged the state’s now-defunct gerrymandered voting maps and uncovered the details of the fake electors scheme that originated here — forcing the Republican officials who posed as members of the Electoral College and cast fraudulent votes for Trump in 2020 to admit they were trying to subvert the will of the voters. On the public website it created to display the details of the scheme, which it obtained as a condition of a settlement, Law Forward stated that it wanted to show “how close our democracy came to toppling and how the freedom to vote must continue to be protected, not taken for granted.”
This week, Law Forward’s grievance against former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman for misconduct in his ill-conceived “investigation” of voter fraud in the 2020 election led to the suspension of Gableman’s law license.
As a Wisconsin-based organization, Mandell says Law Forward looks for opportunities to pursue cases that are of particular importance to the state and that shine a light on threats to democracy.
“The rest of the time we don’t sit in paralysis because of the news,” he adds. Whatever fresh hell is erupting across the country, “we continue to work here so people see an alternative.”
“I think building a stronger, more resilient democracy in Wisconsin is its own form of resistance,” he adds.
“When things feel most shocking and unstable at the federal level,” at the state and local level, Mandell says, “we can show our institutions still work and provide some reassurance.”
Even before Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel last week in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race — despite the heavy-handed intervention of Trump and Elon Musk — Mandell was feeling hopeful. He felt Wisconsin showed a “silver lining” after the November 2024 election, despite Trump’s narrow win in the state.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford thanks supporters after winning the race Tuesday for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Baylor Spears/Wisconsin Examiner)
Among his reasons for optimism: New, fair voting maps that replaced the old Republican gerrymander, creating a more balanced Legislature; a governor who supports voting rights and democratic institutions; extraordinarily high voter engagement, with Wisconsinites turning out in bigger numbers than in other states in 2024 and overwhelmingly rejecting the MAGA-backed Supreme Court candidate in 2025.
With Crawford’s win, “Wisconsin will continue to be a place where we can rely on the courts to protect our fundamental freedoms,” Mandell says.
Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images
The 10-point margin in last week’s election also “reinforces my conviction that the majority of Wisconsinites really do believe in democracy,” Mandell says.
All of those things position Wisconsin to be a leader in the struggle to protect democracy from the Trump onslaught.
Wisconsin’s long march to recovery from misrule by Gov. Scott Walker and the rightwing billionaires who backed him has been taking us in the opposite direction from the rest of the country.
Along with his union-busting Act 10 — challenged by Law Forward and soon to be taken up by the Wisconsin Supreme Court — Walker took a sledgehammer to funding for public education, long before Trump and Musk arrived with their chainsaws. Voters here have been pushing back against the billionaire-financed destruction of civil society for more than a decade. Recently, they’ve been gaining traction. Law Forward has played an important role in that fight.
It’s not just that Democrats will pick up more seats in the state Legislature as the un-gerrymandered maps go into full effect next year, Mandell has hope that our closely divided state will maintain its longstanding independence and commitment to bipartisan institutions. He draws encouragement from the fact that Republicans on the Joint Finance Committee are holding budget hearings around the state, even as Republicans in Washington ram through a budget based on Trump’s demands, ignoring the public and ceding their power as members of Congress.
Wisconsin’s long tradition of good government includes a host of bipartisan commissions, a decentralized elections system that is hard to hack and a great university that has managed to survive waves of attacks by McCarthyites and budget cutters for 176 years.
That tradition extends to a bipartisan nominating commission for federal judges, which ought to choose a replacement for 7th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Diane Sykes, who announced in March that she is taking semi-retirement. Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin’s office reports it has been in contact with Republican Sen. Ron Johnson’s office to reconstitute the charter for the bipartisan nominating commission, as they have done in every Congress under both Democratic and Republican administrations. Trump could still ignore the process and nominate someone on his own. But three weeks after Sykes’ announcement, he hasn’t done it yet.
If Trump wrecks the economy and steers the whole country into a recession, Wisconsin won’t be spared. Nor can we avoid all the shocks of a national authoritarian regime. But our state’s independent democratic institutions leave us well situated to recover, and to help the rest of the country remember what civil society looks like.
“There is no one silver bullet,” says Mandell. “But the goal is to continue to tend the lamp here in Wisconsin, to shine a light that illuminates the path to balance, order and democracy.”
Coattails from the state Supreme Court contest last week might not have affected races on local ballots in northwest Wisconsin, according to a UW-Superior political science professor.
In September, California adopted a law that prohibits local governments from requiring voters to present identification to vote.
The law states that voter ID laws “have historically been used to disenfranchise” certain voters, including those of color or low-income.
The law says California ensures election integrity by requiring a driver’s license number or Social Security number at registration and verifying the voter’s signature with the voter’s registration form.
Voter ID supporters say requiring a photo ID helps prevent voter fraud and increases public confidence in elections.
California is among 14 states that don’t use voter ID. They verify voter identity in other ways, usually signature verification, according to the nonpartisan National Conference of State Legislatures.
Wisconsin has required photo ID since 2016. On April 1, voters approved a referendum adding that requirement to the state constitution.
Elon Musk alluded to the California law during remarks March 30 in Green Bay, Wisconsin.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
Demonstrators protest outside the KI Convention Center before the start of a town hall meeting with Elon Musk on March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
WASHINGTON — Democrats and Republicans both claimed victory and the support of voters nationwide following closely watched elections on Tuesday in Wisconsin and two Florida congressional districts.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford securing a seat on Wisconsin’s highest court over a challenger backed by billionaire Elon Musk was broadly cheered by Democrats as a clear sign voters have rejected GOP policies just months after that party secured control of Congress and the White House.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said during a floor speech Wednesday the Wisconsin Supreme Court results were a signal from the American people that they are not happy with how President Donald Trump and other Republicans are running the country.
“Yesterday was a sign Democrats’ message is resonating,” Schumer said. “When Democrats shine a light on the fact that Republicans are taking vital programs away from the middle class simply to cut taxes for the ultrarich, the public doesn’t like it. When we shine a light on Republican attacks on Medicaid, on Social Security, on veterans’ health care, simply to cut taxes for the rich, Americans listen and they’re aghast of what they see.
“That is one of the main reasons that the results in Wisconsin came in as resoundingly as they did.”
Schumer didn’t mention Republicans winning two U.S. House special elections in Florida.
Ticket splitting in Wisconsin
Wisconsin voters have a history of ticket splitting, including during November’s presidential election, when the state favored Trump, but also voted to send Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin back to Washington.
Trump won the state by less than 30,000 votes out of more than 3.3 million cast. Baldwin secured another six-year term by roughly the same margin.
Crawford received 55% of the vote in this election, winning by about 238,000 votes out of nearly 2.4 million votes cast, according to data from The Associated Press.
GOP Sen. Rick Scott of Florida told reporters Tuesday evening shortly after the results came in that he’s not reading too much into the narrower margin of victory for the two newly elected Republicans in his home state and he doesn’t believe it tells lawmakers anything about what might happen in the 2026 midterm elections.
“Remember, they’re special elections. It’s hard, you know … when there’s a presidential race, everybody knows to vote, even a governor’s race,” Scott said inside the U.S. Capitol. “But when there’s a special election, it’s hard for people to go out and vote.”
Former Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis defeated the Democratic candidate in the state’s 1st Congressional District after receiving 56.9% of the vote, according to the Division of Elections’ unofficial results. The GOP lawmaker who won that district in November did so with 66% of the vote.
In the 6th Congressional District, former state Sen. Randy Fine secured election with 56.6% of the vote, a smaller margin of victory than the 66.5% the former Republican congressman who occupied the seat received in November.
Trump focuses on Florida
Trump hailed the GOP wins in Florida in a social media post, but didn’t mention Wisconsin, where special government employee and close political ally Musk campaigned late last month.
“BOTH FLORIDA HOUSE SEATS HAVE BEEN WON, BIG, BY THE REPUBLICAN CANDIDATE,” Trump wrote. “THE TRUMP ENDORSEMENT, AS ALWAYS, PROVED FAR GREATER THAN THE DEMOCRATS FORCES OF EVIL. CONGRATULATIONS TO AMERICA!!!”
DNC Chair Ken Martin wrote in a statement the Wisconsin Supreme Court election results show voters in the state “squarely rejected the influence of Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and billionaire special interests.”
“Democrats are overperforming, winning races, and building momentum,” Martin wrote. “We’re working hard to continue the trend in the Virginia, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey elections this year and then — with the people on our side — to take back the House in 2026.”
Martin, similar to Schumer, didn’t mention the Florida congressional district races won by GOP politicians.
National Republican Congressional Committee spokesman Mike Marinella released a statement pointing to Florida as solid evidence the party is on the right track.
“Florida’s resounding Republican victories send a clear message: Americans are fired up to elect leaders who will fight for President Trump’s agenda and reject the Democrats’ failed policies,” Marinella wrote. “While Democrats set their cash ablaze, House Republicans will keep hammering them for being out of touch — and we’ll crush them again in 2026.”
Jeffries targets 60 districts
U.S. House Democrats’ campaign arm, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, didn’t release any statements on the Florida election results. But House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said during a press conference Wednesday that the Democratic candidates in the Sunshine State “dramatically overperformed” how Trump did in those areas in November.
“There are 60 House Republicans who hold districts right now that Donald Trump won by 15 points or less in November. Every single one of those Republicans should be concerned,” Jeffries said. “The American people have rejected their extreme brand and their do-nothing agenda and they’re going to be held accountable next November.”
The Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court defeated a challenger endorsed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk on Tuesday, cementing a liberal majority for at least three more years.
Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power and abortion rights and to oppose voter ID, defeated Republican-backed Brad Schimel in a race that broke records for spending, was on pace to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever and became a proxy fight for the nation’s political battles.
Trump, Musk and other Republicans lined up behind Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Crawford.
The first major election in the country since November was seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out $1 million checks to voters.
Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Republicans, referring to Musk as “Elon Schimel” during a debate.
Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who, if elected, would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.
Crawford’s win keeps the court under a 4-3 liberal majority, as it has been since 2023. A liberal justice is not up for election again until April 2028, ensuring liberals will either maintain or increase their hold on the court until then. The two most conservative justices are up for re-election in 2026 and 2027.
The court likely will be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries. Who controls the court also could factor into how it might rule on any future voting challenge in the perennial presidential battleground state, which raised the stakes of the race for national Republicans and Democrats.
Musk and groups he funded poured more than $21 million into the contest. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, campaigned for Schimel in the closing weeks and said electing him was essential to protecting the Republican agenda. Trump endorsed Schimel just 11 days before the election.
Schimel, who leaned into his Trump endorsement in the closing days of the race, said he would not be beholden to the president or Musk despite the massive spending on the race by groups that Musk supports.
Crawford benefitted from campaign stops by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the vice presidential nominee last year, and money from billionaire megadonors including Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
The contest was the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. That broke the previous record of $51 million for the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023.
All of the spending and attention on the race led to high early voting turnout, with numbers more than 50% higher than the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago.
Crawford was elected to a 10-year term replacing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is retiring after 30 years on the bench.
Wisconsin enshrines voter ID in state constitution
Wisconsin’s photo ID requirement for voting will be elevated from state law to constitutional amendment under a proposal approved by voters.
The Republican-controlled Legislature placed the measure on the ballot and pitched it as a way to bolster election security and protect the law from being overturned in court.
Democratic opponents argued that photo ID requirements are often enforced unfairly, making voting more difficult for people of color, disabled people and poor people.
Wisconsin voters won’t notice any changes when they go to the polls. They will still have to present a valid photo ID just as they have under the state law, which was passed in 2011 and went into effect permanently in 2016 after a series of unsuccessful lawsuits.
Placing the photo ID requirement in the constitution makes it more difficult for a future Legislature controlled by Democrats to change the law. Any constitutional amendment must be approved in two consecutive legislative sessions and by a statewide popular vote.
Voters wait in line and cast their ballots at the Villager Shopping Center during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Republican legislators celebrated the measure’s passage.
“This will help maintain integrity in the electoral process, no matter who controls the Legislature,” Sen. Van Wanggaard, who co-authored the amendment, said in a statement.
Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who is leading Trump’s efforts to shrink the federal government, also noted the outcome on his social media platform, X, saying: “Yeah!”
Wisconsin is one of nine states where people must present photo ID to vote, and its requirement is the nation’s strictest, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. Thirty-six states have laws requiring or requesting that voters show some sort of identification, according to the NCSL.
State schools chief Jill Underly wins reelection over GOP-backed rival
Jill Underly, the Democratic-backed state education chief, defeated her Republican-aligned opponent, Brittany Kinser.
Underly will guide policies affecting K-12 schools as Trump moves to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education. Her second term comes at a time when test scores are still recovering from the pandemic, Wisconsin’s achievement gap between white and Black students remains the worst in the country and more schools are asking voters to raise property taxes to pay for operations.
Jill Underly, Wisconsin superintendent of public instruction, speaks to reporters following the State of Education Address on Sept. 26, 2024, at the Wisconsin State Capitol in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin is the only state where voters elect the top education official but there is no state board of education. That gives the superintendent broad authority to oversee education policy, from disbursing school funding to managing teacher licensing.
Underly, 47, had the support of the teachers union in the general election after failing to secure it in the three-person primary. She also was backed financially by the state Democratic Party.
Underly, who was first elected as state superintendent in 2021, ran as a champion of public schools. Kinser is a supporter of the private school voucher program.
Underly’s education career began in 1999 as a high school social studies teacher in Indiana. She moved to Wisconsin in 2005 and worked for five years at the state education department. She also was principal of Pecatonica Elementary School for a year before becoming district administrator.
Kinser, whose backers included the Wisconsin Republican Party and former Republican Govs. Tommy Thompson and Scott Walker, previously worked for Rocketship schools, part of a national network of public charter institutions. She rose to become its executive director in the Milwaukee region.
In 2022 she left Rocketship for City Forward Collective, a Milwaukee nonprofit that advocates for charter and voucher schools. She also founded a consulting firm where she currently works.
Kinser tried to brand Underly as being a poor manager of the Department of Public Instruction and keyed in on her overhaul of state achievement standards last year.
Underly said that was done to better reflect what students are learning now, but the change was met with bipartisan opposition including from Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who was previously state superintendent himself. Evers did not make an endorsement in the race.
High turnout leads to ballot shortage in Milwaukee
A voter enters Centennial Hall at the Milwaukee Central Library to vote on Election Day, April 1, 2025, in Milwaukee. (Kayla Wolf / Associated Press)
Unprecedented turnout led to ballot shortages in Wisconsin’s largest city Tuesday as voters cast ballots in “historic” numbers.
The race for control of the court, which became a proxy battle for the nation’s political fights, broke records for spending and was poised to be the highest-turnout Wisconsin Supreme Court election ever.
Early voting was more than 50% ahead of levels seen in the state’s Supreme Court race two years ago, when majority control was also at stake.
Seven polling sites in Milwaukee ran out of ballots, or were nearly out, due to “historic turnout” and more ballots were on their way before polls closed, said Paulina Gutierrez, the executive director of the Milwaukee Election Commission.
Clerks all across the state, including in the city’s deep-red suburbs, reported turnout far exceeding 2023 levels.
A state race with nationwide significance
The court can decide election-related laws and settle disputes over future election outcomes.
“Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin,” Trump said Monday. “Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so therefore the Supreme Court choice … it’s a big race.”
Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Musk and Trump, who endorsed Schimel 11 days before the election.
The results of Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice-elect Susan Crawford’s victory over Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel are shown at the Crawford watch party on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel hugs supporters after making his concession speech Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Pewaukee, Wis. (AP Photo/Andy Manis)
Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.
Voters in Eau Claire seemed to be responding to both messages. Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old retiree, said he voted for Schimel because he’s concerned about redistricting.
Jim Hazelton, a 68-year-old disabled veteran, said he had planned to abstain but voted for Crawford after Musk — whom he described as a “pushy billionaire” — and Trump got involved.
“He’s cutting everything,” Hazelton said of Musk. “People need these things he’s cutting.”
What’s on the court’s agenda?
The court will likely be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.
Last year the court declined to take up a Democratic-backed challenge to congressional lines, but Schimel and Musk said that if Crawford wins, the court will redraw congressional districts to make them more favorable to Democrats. Currently Republicans control six out of eight seats in an evenly divided state.
Musk was pushing that message on Election Day, both on TV and the social media platform he owns, X, urging people to cast ballots in the final hours of voting.
There were no major voting issues by midday Tuesday, state election officials said. Severe weather prompted the relocation of some polling places in northern Wisconsin, and some polling places in Green Bay briefly lost power but voting continued. In Dane County, home to the state capital, Madison, election officials said polling locations were busy and operating normally.
Record-breaking donations
The contest is the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending nearing $99 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.
Musk contributed $3 million to the campaign, while groups he funded poured in another $18 million. Musk also gave $1 million each to three voters who signed a petition he circulated against “activist” judges.
Elon Musk speaks at a town hall Sunday, March 30, 2025, in Green Bay, Wis. (Jeffrey Phelps / Associated Press)
Schimel leaned into his support from Trump while saying he would not be beholden to the president or Musk. Democrats centered their messaging on the spending by Musk-funded groups.
“Ultimately I think it’s going to help Susan Crawford, because people do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”
State Superintendent Jill Underly was reelected Tuesday, beating educational consultant Brittany Kinser to continue leading Wisconsin's Department of Public Instruction.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, preserving liberals’ 4-3 majority after a hard-fought, highly politicized contest that attracted national attention and shattered spending records.
The campaign for Wisconsin Supreme Court neared the finish line Monday as the candidates wrapped up tours of the state and outside spending continued to smash records.
Unprecedented levels of funding backing either Dane County Judge Susan Crawford or Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel have come from across the country.
A Wisconsin appellate court denied the state Democratic attorney general's request to stop billionaire Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters at a rally planned for Sunday
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