That eye-popping figure has drawn plenty of headlines — as did the millions spent by billionaire Elon Musk to support Republican-backed Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who lost handily to Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, backed by Democrats.
But the race also set another record in Wisconsin for a spring election not featuring a presidential primary contest: in voter turnout.
More than 2.3 million people cast ballots in the election, according to Associated Press tracking. That amounts to nearly 51% of the voting age population, shattering the previous record for such elections of 39% in 2023.
“Wisconsin’s electorate is just plain extremely engaged,” he wrote. “Scour American history and you’ll struggle to find an example of (a) state as hyper-engaged with, and narrowly divided by, electoral politics as Wisconsin in the present moment.”
Last week’s election offered good news for Democrats, aside from the top-line figures in Crawford’s 55%-45% win. (The Supreme Court is officially nonpartisan, but Democrats backed Crawford, while Republicans backed Schimel.)
When comparing the high-turnout 2024 presidential election to the latest Supreme Court race, voting shifted toward the Democratic-backed candidate in all 72 counties.
The biggest difference in the latest election, according to Johnson: “A majority of the million voters who stayed home are probably Republicans, or at least Trump supporters.”
More broadly, it’s clear that the high stakes of the Supreme Court race drove most to cast ballots in an election that also included an officially nonpartisan contest for state superintendent of public instruction and a successful ballot measure to enshrine voter ID requirements in the Wisconsin Constitution.
Nearly 200,000 people who cast ballots did not choose a superintendent candidate. Democratic-backed incumbent Jill Underly prevailed over Republican-backed Brittany Kinser by a 53%-47% margin — closer than the Supreme Court race.
Additionally, about 76,000 voters did not weigh in on the voter ID amendment.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit, nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters for original stories and our Friday news roundup.
It is too soon to definitively say whether Madison’s April 1 election went off without any problems. But city and county election officials told Votebeat that they were confident that new absentee ballot procedures put in place after 193 ballots went uncounted in November would prevent another major error.
Tuesday was the first high-profile election in Madison since the snafu in November, when 193 ballots in unopened ballot bags from two polling stations went uncounted during the presidential contest. Staff didn’t discover the ballots until much later, a critical lapse that prompted state and city investigations and the suspension of Madison Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl in March. A voter lawsuit is expected.
Witzel-Behl’s replacement is City Attorney Mike Haas, formerly the Wisconsin Elections Commission administrator and a longtime election lawyer. This was the first election he has ever run as a municipal clerk.
Amid the investigation, city officials implemented new procedures to better track absentee ballots and ensure that oversights are detected before results are finalized.
New procedures add to the paperwork
The changes were apparent at Madison polling places, which had multiple new checklists and required paperwork to ensure that officials opened and processed every bag containing absentee ballots. They were also apparent at the clerk’s office, where at 9 p.m., employees had begun looking through election materials from each of the city’s 108 polling sites to make sure there weren’t any missing ballots.
At Madison West High School, where 68 of the ballots went missing in November, chief inspector Peter Quinn said just before 4 p.m. that the new procedures make a repeat error “basically impossible.”
Quinn has been a chief inspector before, but he wasn’t the chief inspector at the school in November when the ballots went missing.
“It’s a mistake that should not have been made,” Quinn said about the error, adding that the new procedures make it easier to catch discrepancies.
After nearly 200 absentee ballots weren’t counted in the November election, Madison implemented new procedures for poll workers for the April 1, 2025, election. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Each polling site now receives updated lists throughout the day detailing every absentee ballot bag delivered. Each bag is identified by a seal number. Election officials check off one blank on that list when they open each bag and another blank when they process the ballots. This way, election officials know how many carrier envelopes they receive — and how many they’re supposed to count.
Poll workers also record the number of ballots in each bag on two separate documents and, at the end of the night, complete a summary sheet confirming that the number of absentee ballots received matches the number counted or rejected.
Kevin Kennedy, former state elections chief and now a chief inspector at Madison’s Senior Center, called the new process “good documentation” — but said it can be overwhelming.
“My problem,” he said at 2 p.m., standing in front of the table where absentee ballots get processed, “is that there’s so many things to keep track of here.”
Kennedy pointed to an absentee ballot processing guide given to poll workers and said he wished the clerk’s office provided equally clear instructions for navigating the added procedures. While he believes the system is now less prone to error, he warned that paperwork redundancies can slow down the process.
Procedures still need to be refined
A half-mile away, Sam Peplinski, 19, stood outside the Nicholas Recreation Center polling place — the same site where his absentee ballot went uncounted in November.
“It was my first time voting,” he said of the experience, which shook his trust in elections. “It was just shocking.”
He said it’s unrealistic to expect perfection, but the loss of nearly 200 ballots made the issue “large enough to not be ignored.”
This time he voted at the polls on Election Day — but only because he just recently learned of the election date. “An unintended benefit,” he said.
At the end of the night, Haas, the interim city clerk, told Votebeat the new procedures might have been a little “overkill,” but said after the November snafu it’s better to have too much paperwork than too little.
Witzel-Behl, the city clerk on leave, put in place many of the new procedures between November and February, and more were added since then, but Haas said there wasn’t much time to get feedback on those procedures from the city’s poll workers.
“I think we just need more time to refine those, make sure that they’re workable for the inspectors,” he said.
Deputy Clerk Bonnie Chang told Votebeat that staff would spend Wednesday and Thursday looking through all the election materials that polling places return to the clerk’s office, making sure there aren’t any missing ballots there. They were also checking a new sheet that each polling site’s chief inspector fills out to make sure the number of ballots processed is equal to the number of ballots received.
At the City-County Building in Madison, Wis., Madison Deputy Clerk Bonnie Chang prepares to review results from polling places following the April 1, 2025, election. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Spending on the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court race approached $100 million or more – in total – according to reports leading up to Election Day.
The WisPolitics news outlet tally was $107 million, including $2 million contributed by billionaire George Soros to the Wisconsin Democratic Party.
The party, in turn, funneled donations to the liberal candidate, Susan Crawford.
The Brennan Center for Justice tally was $98.6 million, enough to make the nonpartisan Wisconsin contest the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.
According to the center, a program at New York University Law School that tracks campaign spending:
The largest amount spent, $28.3 million, was by Crawford’s campaign.
Schimel was backed by billionaire Elon Musk. The Musk-founded America PAC spent $12.3 million. That’s also a national record for outside spending in a judicial race.
Minutes later Tuesday night, the conservative-backed Brad Schimel took the stage at his watch party to acknowledge the loss. Angry yells broke out. One woman began to chant about his opponent: “Cheater.”
Schimel didn’t hesitate. “No,” he responded. “You’ve got to accept the results.” Later, he returned to the stage with his classic rock cover band to jam on his bass.
In any other American era, Schimel’s concession wouldn’t be considered unusual – except maybe the guitar part. But it stands out at a time when the nation’s politics have opened a fissure between those who trust election results and those who don’t.
“It shouldn’t be super laudable,” said Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the Madison-based liberal law firm Law Forward. “But given where we are and given what we’ve seen over the past few years nationwide and in Wisconsin, it is laudable.”
Schimel’s concession of that very same court to a liberal majority, though in line with what generations of candidates have done in the past, was not a given in today’s divisive atmosphere.
Onstage, as his supporters yelled, Schimel shook his head and left no uncertainty he’d lost — a result that would become even clearer later in the night as Crawford’s lead grew to around 10 percentage points.
“The numbers aren’t going to — aren’t going to turn around,” he told the crowd. “They’re too bad, and we’re not going to pull this off.”
By acknowledging his loss quickly, Schimel curtailed the kind of explanation-seeking and digital digging that erupted online after Trump, a Republican, lost the 2020 presidential election, with citizen journalists falsely accusing innocent election workers and voters of fraud.
Schimel also avoided the impulses to which many in his party have defaulted in recent elections across the country, as they’ve dragged their feet to avoid accepting defeat.
Last fall, Wisconsin Republican Eric Hovde spent days sowing doubt in the results after he lost a Senate race to Democrat Tammy Baldwin. He conceded nearly two weeks after Election Day, saying he did not want to “add to political strife through a contentious recount” even as he raised debunked election conspiracies.
In a 2024 state Supreme Court race in North Carolina, two recounts have affirmed Democrat Allison Riggs narrowly won the election, but her Republican opponent, Jefferson Griffin, is still seeking to reverse the outcome by having ballots thrown out.
Trump also has continued to falsely claim he won the 2020 presidential election, even though there was no evidence of widespread fraud and the results were confirmed through multiple recounts, reviews and audits. His close adviser, billionaire Elon Musk, has also spread a flurry of unfounded claims about voter fraud involving noncitizens.
Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $21 million into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, and he personally paid three voters $1 million each for signing a petition to boost turnout. He had said the race was central to the “future of America and Western civilization.”
But after the results came in, he said he “expected to lose” and touted the successful passage of a voter ID amendment in Wisconsin’s Constitution. Trump, who had endorsed Schimel, didn’t post about the loss but used his Truth Social platform to celebrate the voter ID win.
An assessment: ‘That’s democracy’
Not all Republicans watching the race were in a magnanimous mood as they processed the results. Peter Bernegger, the head of an election integrity organization who has brought numerous lawsuits against Wisconsin election clerks and offices, raised the specter that an “algorithm” was behind Crawford’s win. InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones reacted to the results on X, saying, “Election fraud should be investigated.”
But at Schimel’s watch party, several supporters applauded his high road.
“He was all class,” said Russell Jones, a 51-year-old attorney. “That’s how you lose.”
Adam Manka, of the La Crosse County Republican Party, said he worries about how a liberal court could redraw the state’s congressional districts. “But you can’t exactly change it,” Manka said, calling Schimel “very graceful” in his defeat. “This is democracy.”
Crawford, in an interview Wednesday, said Schimel’s phone call was “the way elections should conclude” and said she would have done the same thing if she had lost.
The moment is a good example for future candidates, said Ari Mittleman, executive director of the Wisconsin-based nonprofit Keep Our Republic, which aims to rebuild trust and confidence in elections. He compared elections to a Green Bay Packers football game: “We know who won, we know who lost.” He said he thinks Schimel, a lifelong Wisconsin resident, understands that.
“It’s transparent, and we accept the final score,” Mittleman said. “That’s democracy.”
Schimel and his band, performing for a thinning crowd Tuesday night, took the loss in stride.
“Can you ask them at the bar to get me a Coors Light please?” Schimel said between songs. “Put it on my tab.”
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Denise Jess walked into a Madison polling place on Saturday to vote early in person and encountered a familiar barrier: an absentee ballot envelope with a blank space for writing in her name, birthdate and address.
Jess, who is blind, chuckled along with her wife, who accompanied her to the polls. Who was going to do all that writing?
A poll worker quickly offered help, reminding Jess that she had the right to assistance. Jess, who is executive director of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind & Visually Impaired, knew she had those rights. But the moment still bothered her.
“It’s just a bummer,” she said, comparing voting with other tasks she performs independently, like identifying birds by ear, paying bills online, posting on social media, and grocery shopping. Voting is a constitutional right in Wisconsin and yet, she said, it remains far less accessible.
Other industries have prioritized accessibility because it benefits their bottom line, she said, but voting systems were not originally designed with accessibility in mind.
“We’re making strides,” she said, “but it’s still always, always about retrofitting and trying to catch up.”
Denise Jess uses an accessible voting machine during a test run at a Madison, Wis. polling place on March 29, 2025 (Courtesy of Denise Jess)
Jess’s experience illustrates a persistent tension in election policy: how to ensure both ballot security and accessibility for all voters. Electronic absentee voting is particularly nettlesome. Disability rights advocates have pushed for this option as a way for people with vision or other disabilities to vote independently, and in private, from home. But cybersecurity experts warn that current technology cannot guarantee that ballots returned electronically will be safe from hacking or manipulation.
Over a dozen other states provide fully electronic absentee voting for people with disabilities. In those states, voters with disabilities can receive a ballot electronically, mark it using a screen reader and return it electronically — similar to signing and returning a document electronically. Wisconsin isn’t one of them. Here, voters with disabilities must cast their votes on a paper ballot, or on an accessible voting machine at a polling place that prints out a paper ballot.
That means that voters who are visually impaired or unable to write must often rely on others to complete their ballots — undermining ballot secrecy, which is also constitutionally protected. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when many disabled voters were reluctant to visit the polls in person, Wisconsin’s rules presented an even bigger barrier.
Last year, four voters with disabilities, along with Disability Rights Wisconsin and the League of Women Voters of Wisconsin, filed a lawsuit seeking access to electronic absentee voting. A lower court initially granted some voters that option, but an appeals court paused and eventually reversed that order. The case is now before the Dane County Circuit Court.
Beyond the roughly dozen states that offer fully electronic voting, a few others, including Vermont, Michigan, Maryland, and Pennsylvania, allow voters with disabilities to fill out ballots electronically, but they have to print out the ballots and return them by mail, drop box, or in person. Verified Voting, a nonpartisan election technology group, promotes this option as a step forward for states wary of fully electronic voting.
That wouldn’t solve the issue for everyone, though. Jess pointed out that many blind voters don’t own printers, meaning they’d still face accessibility hurdles.
Security concerns haven’t been resolved
At a time of heightened concern over election security and integrity, some technology experts say fully electronic voting is still not ready to be used widely.
Between August 2021 and September 2022, the University of California, Berkeley, hosted a working group of election, technology and cybersecurity experts to discuss the feasibility of creating standards to enable safe and secure electronic marking and return technologies. The group found that widespread adoption of electronic return would require technologies that don’t currently exist or haven’t been tested.
A 2024 report by several federal agencies, including the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency and the Election Assistance Commission, found that sending digital copies of ballots to voters is safe and that filling them out electronically is somewhat safe, but that returning them electronically adds significant security risks.
“Sheer force of will doesn’t suffice to solve this problem,” said Mark Lindeman, the policy and strategy director at Verified Voting. “There needs to be extensive technical innovations that we can’t just dial up.”
Lindeman said threats from electronic ballot return include the possibility that somebody hacks into the system and changes votes. One potential safeguard — having voters verify that their selections were received and counted correctly — remains unproven at scale, the UC-Berkeley working group said.
“That’s the fundamental technical tragedy at this stage of the game,” Lindeman said. “Paper ballots are obviously inconvenient for many voters. They pose real obstacles to voting, but we haven’t found a technical alternative to paper ballots that solves all the problems.”
Denise Jess chooses ‘path of least pain’
In Wisconsin, Jess chooses among three imperfect voting options.
She can vote on Election Day in her polling place, whose layout she has memorized, though it can get too busy for her comfort. She can vote using an accessible machine but still has to hand-sign the poll book, something she typically does with the assistance of a poll worker and a signature guide, a small plastic card with a rectangular cutout that frames the area where she has to sign.
Alternatively, she can vote absentee in person during the early voting period, but then she has to receive help with paperwork and navigating an unfamiliar polling place.
Or she can fill out an application online and vote by mail, which she avoids because she can’t fill out a paper ballot without assistance.
“It’s kind of like, what’s the path of least pain?” she said.
An ExpressVote machine is on hand at Madison West High School polling place during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
An ExpressVote machine is on hand at Madison West High School polling place during the spring election on April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
For this Wisconsin Supreme Court election, given the potential for bad weather, she opted for early in-person voting at the Hawthorne Public Library, which isn’t her regular polling place.
“There’s enough consistency here at Hawthorne, but still there are surprises,” she said, sitting at a table at the library on Madison’s east side. “Even the simple navigation of going to the table to get the envelope, getting in line. They’re queuing people to wait behind the blue tape, which, of course, I can’t see.”
She could opt for more hands-on help from poll workers to speed up the process, but she said she sees her voting trips as a chance to learn more about the potential barriers for people with disabilities.
Some voters who are newer to vision loss or have more severe barriers can quickly become demoralized by the extra energy they need to put into casting a ballot, especially if poll workers aren’t trained or ready to help, she said.
“We’ve had voters say, ‘I’m not going back. I’m just not doing that again, doing that to myself,’ she said. “So then we lose a voter.”
If electronic voting were available, Jess said, she would do it a lot more often than voting in person because she wouldn’t have to depend on transportation or the weather.
“It would just be absolutely liberating,” she said. “I might still vote in-person at my polling place periodically, because I like my poll workers, and I always like to visit with them and give them kudos. But it would surely ease some stress.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Absentee voting didn’t used to be popular in Addison, a rural town of 3,300 in southeast Wisconsin. A few days before the last Supreme Court election in 2023, only about 60 residents had cast absentee ballots in person.
This year, at the same point in the election cycle, that number was over 300.
The sharp increase is due partly to Republicans’ recent embrace of absentee voting, especially in the nearly two-week period before Election Day when voters can cast absentee ballots in person. Washington County, where Addison is located, is one of the state’s most Republican counties and one of many Republican-dominated areas across Wisconsin where early voting rates have surged.
But perhaps a bigger reason is a recent Washington County initiative aimed at making early voting more accessible for voters and more feasible for municipalities. The program compensates municipalities for the costs of extending their hours during the state’s early in-person voting period. It makes up for the gaps in municipal budgets that previously limited early voting opportunities.
“It really comes down to a matter of priorities,” Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, a former municipal clerk, told Votebeat. “And there’s nothing more fundamental to county government and to government in general, in Wisconsin and America, than the opportunity for people to vote.”
County absorbs the added costs for municipalities
The county first rolled out the initiative during the November 2024 election as part of a broader funding package approved by the county board. The package included over $150,000 for extended in-person absentee voting hours, voluntary audits and cameras for ballot drop boxes across the county.
Public funding for such activities is more critical now after voters last year approved a Republican-written constitutional amendment banning private funding for election support, responding to a Republican outcry over private grants to fund election administration, especially in Democratic strongholds.
County Board Chair Jeff Schleif said he was eager to support the proposal because it would ensure that Republicans, who were just coming around to voting early, had the time and opportunity to do it, just as Democrats did in places like Milwaukee.
“Our board is as conservative as it’s ever been,” he said, adding that extending early voting hours is helpful to everybody.
Moreover, Schleif said, the proposal would authorize and fund election audits that could debunk allegations from people like MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell that some voting machines were being hacked to change votes.
After the November election, about $71,000 of the funds remained unspent. This year, the county signed off on using that money to continue the program into this high-stakes April election.
For this election, the county is compensating municipalities at 150% of the added cost for extending their early voting hours beyond what they were in the April 2023 election. About 90% of the municipalities in the county are participating, Washington County Clerk Ashley Reichert, a Republican, said. The county also mailed voters a schedule of their town’s early voting hours.
Reichert said the initiative aims to provide local residents with voting opportunities comparable to urban areas, including weekend and night voting options. The additional hours benefit many residents who commute to Milwaukee for work and can’t vote during typical business hours, she said.
“We have quite a few very rural communities where the clerks are very part-time, and their budgets are small, and so for them, offering additional time was just not a feasible option,” she said. “Being able to take the funding off the table as a concern really helped quite a few of our municipalities.”
More hours for voting, and more voters showing up
Addison Town Clerk Wendy Fairbanks said early voting hours have expanded significantly due to the county’s support. In 2023, Addison’s early voting was generally open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Thursday. Now it’s open as early as 7 a.m. and as late as 6 p.m., including Fridays.
“I’m able to bring in election workers to help me with this so I’m not doing it all on my own,” Fairbanks said. “Otherwise, I’d get no other work done.”
The county’s help, she continued, “takes the burden off the town, so that we’re not using money from our tax levy that could go towards road repair or something in the town.”
Another Washington County municipality, the village of Richfield, now offers Saturday hours for early voting thanks to county funding. About 90 residents participated on a recent Saturday, contributing to a total of 1,674 early ballots cast as of Thursday morning — about double the amount from this time two years ago.
Village Administrator Jim Healy said the initiative was crucial for voters who couldn’t vote during regular hours. “We really felt strongly for these types of elections that have either state or national implications that we ought to try to go the extra mile,” Healy said, expressing hope that other Wisconsin counties might follow Washington County’s example.
In all, as of Thursday morning, Washington County had over 13,400 voters cast absentee ballots in person, nearly triple the number of votes at this point in the 2023 cycle and the fourth most in the state, despite it being only the 10th largest county by voting age population.
While increased absentee voting means additional ballots to process, local clerks aren’t concerned about significantly longer counting times.
“This is absolutely adding one more thing,” Schoemann said, “but I also know that their biggest pain point is their budgets. They’re really, really tight. So we want to try to hit their biggest pain point where we can help them and get what voters want, and that is more opportunity.”
Other clerks look at the Washington County model
Reichert, the Washington County clerk, said she has heard from a number of county and municipal clerks, along with legislators, interested in replicating this initiative across the state. Right now, though, she said Washington County appears to be the only county offering municipal clerks that compensation.
That may change soon: At a recent event, Rep. Scott Krug, a legislative leader who formerly chaired the Assembly Elections Committee, said one of his top upcoming legislative priorities was funding early voting so every municipality offers the same availability. He wasn’t available to comment further on Thursday.
Meanwhile, in most counties, early voting hours are uneven from town to town. In neighboring Ozaukee County, municipal clerks are staggering their hours to try to make time for residents seeking to vote early in person, said County Clerk Kellie Kretlow, a Republican. Some municipal election offices are open every day for early voting, while others are only open a few days across the nearly two-week voting period.
Sheboygan County Clerk Jon Dolson, a Republican, told Votebeat he was interested in the proposal but couldn’t see how his fiscally conservative board would approve a $15,000 funding increase, much less a $150,000 package like the one passed in neighboring Washington County. The county board recently cut the number of positions in his office, he said.
Washington County Executive Josh Schoemann, seen at the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee in 2024, said the county board prioritized an initiative to help municipalities expand early voting hours after years of disciplined budgeting and surplus management. (Matthew DeFour / Wisconsin Watch)
So how did such a large spending proposal for election offices get through the fiscally conservative Washington County Board of Supervisors, which represents one of the most staunchly Republican constituencies in the state?
Schoemann, the county executive, said the board prioritized this initiative after years of disciplined budgeting and surplus management.
He said it was important for officials at the county level to take the lead, rather than expecting local clerks to each ask for help.
The proposals together were billed as an “election integrity package” that would enhance election security — a concern that Republicans have repeatedly raised.
Reichert, the county clerk, said it likely helped that the support for extended early voting hours was rolled into a broader package addressing security concerns around drop boxes and audits. Extending early voting hours itself addressed a security concern, she said, since some supervisors questioned whether mailed ballots would arrive too late or get lost in the mail.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
This story was originally published by ProPublica.
Ten years ago, when Wisconsin lawmakers approved a bill to allow unlimited spending in state elections, only one Republican voted no.
“I just thought big money was an evil, a curse on our politics,” former state Sen. Robert Cowles said recently of his 2015 decision to buck his party.
As Wisconsin voters head to the polls this week to choose a new state Supreme Court justice, Cowles stands by his assessment. Voters have been hit with a barrage of attack ads from special interest groups, and record-setting sums of money have been spent to sway residents. What’s more, Cowles said, there’s been little discussion of major issues. The candidates debated only once.
“I definitely think that that piece of legislation made things worse,” Cowles said in an interview. “Our public discourse is basically who can inflame things in the most clever way with some terrible TV ad that’s probably not even true.”
More than $80 million has been funneled into the race as of March 25, according to two groups that have been tracking spending in the contest — the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan law and policy group that follows judicial races, and the news outlet WisPolitics. That surpasses the previous costliest judicial race in the country’s history, approximately $56 million spent two years ago on the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin.
Money is pouring into this swing state election so fast and so many ads have been reserved that political observers now believe the current race is likely to reach $100 million by Tuesday, which is Election Day.
“People are thoroughly disgusted, I think, across the political spectrum with just the sheer amount of money being spent on a spring Supreme Court election in Wisconsin,” said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, which has long advocated for campaign finance reform.
But the elected officials who could revamp the campaign finance system on both sides of the aisle or create pressure for change have been largely silent. No bills introduced this session. No press conferences from legislators. The Senate no longer even has a designated elections committee.
The current election pits former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel, now a circuit court judge in conservative-leaning Waukesha County, against Susan Crawford, a judge in Dane County, the state’s liberal bastion.
Though the race technically is nonpartisan, the Democratic Party, including former President Barack Obama, has endorsed Crawford; the party has received financial support from liberal billionaire George Soros. On the other side, President Donald Trump posted a message on his social media platform on March 21 urging his supporters to vote for Schimel, and much of Schimel’s money comes from political organizations tied to Elon Musk.
The stakes are high. Whoever wins will determine the ideological bent of the seven-member court just two years after Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the court and swung it to the liberals. With Protasiewicz on the court, the majority struck down state legislative maps, which had been drawn to favor Republicans, and reinstated the use of drop boxes to collect absentee ballots.
A Schimel victory could resurrect those and other voting issues, as well as determine whether women in the state will continue to be able to access abortion.
Two pro-Schimel groups linked to Musk — America PAC and Building America’s Future — had disclosed spending about $17 million, as of March 25. Musk himself donated $3 million this year to the Republican Party of Wisconsin. In the final stretch of the campaign, news reports revealed that Musk’s America PAC plans to give Wisconsin voters $100 to sign petitions rejecting the actions of “activist judges.”
That has raised concerns among some election watchdog groups, which have been exploring whether the offer from Musk amounts to an illegal inducement to get people to vote.
On Wednesday night, Musk went further, announcing on X a $1 million award to a Green Bay voter he identified only as “Scott A” for “supporting our petition against activist judges in Wisconsin!” Musk promised to hand out other million-dollar prizes before the election.
Musk has a personal interest in the direction of the Wisconsin courts. His electric car company, Tesla Inc., is suing the state over a law requiring manufacturers to sell automobiles through independent dealerships. Musk and Tesla did not respond to requests for comment about his involvement in the race.
Also on Schimel’s side: billionaires Diane Hendricks and Richard Uihlein and Americans for Prosperity, a dark-money group founded by billionaire Charles Koch and his late brother David. Americans for Prosperity has reported spending about $3 million, primarily for digital ads, canvassing, mailers and door hangers.
A Better Wisconsin Together Political Fund, a union-supported electioneering group, has ponied up over $6 million to advance Crawford. In other big outlays, Soros has given $2 million to the state Democratic Party, while Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, another billionaire, gave $1.5 million. And California venture capitalist Reid Hoffman, co-founder of LinkedIn, donated $250,000.
In Wisconsin, political parties can steer unlimited amounts to candidates.
State Sen. Jeff Smith, a Democrat and a minority leader, called the spending frenzy “obscene.”
“There’s no reason why campaigns should cost as much as they do,” he said.
Asked for comment about the vast amount of money in the race, Crawford told ProPublica: “I’m grateful for the historic outpouring of grassroots support across Wisconsin from folks who don’t want Elon Musk controlling our Supreme Court.”
Schimel’s campaign called Crawford a “hypocrite,” saying she “is playing the victim while receiving more money than any judicial candidate in American history thanks to George Soros, Reid Hoffman, and JB Pritzker funneling money to her campaign.”
Quizzed Monday by a TV reporter on whether he would recuse himself if the Tesla case got to the state’s high court, Schimel did not commit, saying: “I’ll do the same thing I do in every case. I will examine whether I can truly hear that case objectively.”
A decade after Wisconsin opened the floodgates to unlimited money in campaigns in 2015, some good government activists are wondering if the state has reached a tipping point. Is there any amount, they ask, at which the state’s political leaders can be persuaded to impose controls?
“I honestly believe that folks have their eyes open around the money in a way that they have not previously,” Nick Ramos, executive director of the nonpartisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks campaign spending, told reporters during a briefing on spending in the race.
A loosely organized group of campaign reformers is beginning to lay the groundwork for change. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign recently called a Zoom meeting that included representatives of public interest groups inside and outside of Wisconsin, dark-money researchers and an election security expert.
They were looking for ways to champion reform during the current legislative session. In particular, they are studying and considering what models make sense and may be achievable, including greater disclosure requirements, public financing and restricting candidates from coordinating with dark-money groups on issue ads.
But Republicans say that the spending is a natural byproduct of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United decision, which equated campaign spending with free speech and opened the spigots for big-money races.
“For the most part, we don’t really, as Republicans, want to see the brakes on free speech,” said Ken Brown, past chair of the GOP Party of Racine, a city south of Milwaukee. Noting he was not speaking for the party, Brown said he does not favor spending limits. “I believe in the First Amendment. It is what it is. I believe the Citizens United decision was correct.”
Asked to comment on the current system of unlimited money, Anika Rickard, a spokesperson for the Republican Party of Wisconsin, did not answer the question but instead criticized Crawford and her funders.
Post-reform bill opened floodgates
At one point, Wisconsin was seen as providing a roadmap for reform. In 2009, the state passed the Impartial Justice Act. The legislation, enacted with bipartisan support, provided for public financing of state Supreme Court races, so candidates could run without turning to special interests for money.
The push for the measure came after increased spending by outside special interests and the candidates in two state Supreme Court races: the 2007 election that cost an estimated $5.8 million and the 2008 contest that neared $6 million, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
Candidates who agreed in 2009 to public financing and spending limits received grants of up to $400,000 for the race. The money came from the Democracy Trust Fund, which was supported by a $2 income tax check-off.
“Reformers win a fight to clean up court races,” the headline on an editorial in The Capital Times read at the time.
But the law was in place for only one election, in April 2011. Both candidates in the court’s general election that year agreed to take public funding, and incumbent Justice David Prosser, a conservative, narrowly won reelection. Then Republicans eliminated funding for the measure that summer. Instead, the money was earmarked to implement a stringent voter ID law.
By 2015, GOP leaders had completely overhauled the state’s campaign finance law, with Democrats in the Assembly refusing to even vote on the measure in protest.
“This Republican bill opens the floodgates to unlimited spending by billionaires, by big corporations and by monied, special interests to influence our elections,” Rep. Lisa Subeck, a Democrat, said in the floor debate.
Wisconsin is no longer cited as a model. Activists point to other states, including Arizona, Oregon and Rhode Island. Arizona and Oregon established disclosure measures to trace the flow of dark money, requiring campaign spenders to reveal the original source of donations. Rhode Island required ads to name not only the sponsor but the organization’s top donors so voters can better access the message and its credibility.
Amid skepticism that Wisconsin will rein in campaign spending, there may be some reason for optimism.
A year ago, a proposed joint resolution in Wisconsin’s Legislature bemoaned Citizens United and the spending it had unleashed. The resolution noted that “this spending has the potential to drown out speech rights for all citizens, narrow debate, weaken federalism and self-governance in the states, and increase the risk of systemic corruption.”
The resolution called for a constitutional amendment clarifying that “states may regulate the spending of money to influence federal elections.”
And though it never came to a vote, 17 members of the Legislature signed on to it, a dozen of them Republicans. Eight of them are still in the Legislature, including Sen. Van Wanggaard, who voted for the 2015 bill weakening Wisconsin’s campaign finance rules.
Wanggaard did not respond to a request for comment. But an aide expressed surprise — and disbelief — seeing the lawmaker’s name on the resolution.
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A reader asked: Was Elon Musk’s endorsement of Brad Schimel a violation of lobbying laws because of Musk’s status as a federal employee?
We’ll get to that question in a second, but we also wondered about the answer to a related question: Are the cash giveaways from Musk’s America PAC ahead of the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election legal?
Musk, the centibillionaire tech CEO turned efficiency czar for President Donald Trump, has dominated the Wisconsin Supreme Court race in recent weeks. Musk and affiliated groups have poured cash into the race between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative candidate Brad Schimel, which will determine ideological control of the high court and could have national ramifications.
America PAC and Building America’s Future, two groups that are funded by Musk, have spent more than $16.7 million on advertising and voter mobilization efforts meant to aid Schimel’s candidacy. Musk has also donated $3 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which can transfer the money to Schimel’s campaign.
Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, is offering registered Wisconsin voters $100 if they sign a petition opposing “activist judges.”
“Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas,” the petition reads. “By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”
Participants can also get $100 for referring another petition signer.
Late on Wednesday the super PAC announced that “Scott A.” from Green Bay had been selected to win $1 million after filling out the petition. That mirrors a move America PAC deployed in last year’s presidential race.
It’s less clear whether America PAC’s “special offer” violates Wisconsin’s election bribery statute, according to Bryna Godar, a staff attorney with the University of Wisconsin Law School’s State Democracy Research Initiative.
(1m) Any person who does any of the following violates this chapter:
a. Offers, gives, lends or promises to give or lend, or endeavors to procure, anything of value, or any office or employment or any privilege or immunity to, or for, any elector, or to or for any other person, in order to induce any elector to:
i. Go to or refrain from going to the polls.
ii. Vote or refrain from voting.
iii.Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular person.
iv. Vote or refrain from voting for or against a particular referendum; or on account of any elector having done any of the above.
The $100 reward for signing the petition “definitely falls into a gray area because (America PAC) is paying people to sign the petition,” Godar said. “The question is whether the payment is being given in order to induce anyone to vote or refrain from voting.”
“These payments kind of walk an uncertain line on whether they are amounting to that or not,” Godar added.
Godar also noted that you have to be a registered Wisconsin voter to receive the payment, “so it does seem like it is inducing people to register to vote.” That violates federal law for federal elections, she said, but “federal law doesn’t apply to this election because there aren’t any federal offices on the ballot.”
“Under the state law, that’s not specifically one of the listed prohibitions,” Godar said. “It’s definitely in a gray area and sort of walks the line.”
Elon Musk posted on X, the social media platform he owns, that he would incentivize voting in Wisconsin with $1 million checks. The post appears to have been taken down. An X user asked the platform’s AI chatbot, Grok, whether Musk’s plan was election fraud. The bot responded that the plan likely violates Wisconsin election law.
Late on Thursday, Musk announced he would “give a talk in Wisconsin” in a social media post that has since been taken down.
“Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election,” he wrote. “I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.”
An AI chatbot on Musk’s own social media site flagged the activity in the post as potentially illegal. “Though aimed at boosting participation, this could be seen as election bribery,” the AI profile @grok replied to someone asking if the post was legal.
In a follow-up email, Godar said giving “the payment for voting instead of for signing the petition much more clearly violates Wisconsin law.”
On Friday afternoon, Musk posted again: “To clarify a previous post, entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges.”
“I will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition,” he wrote.
UPDATE (March 31, 2025, 9:00 a.m.): On Friday afternoon, Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul filed a lawsuit to bar Musk and America PAC from promoting the “million-dollar gifts.” The suit also sought to prohibit Musk and America PAC “from making any payments to Wisconsin electors to vote.” The case was randomly assigned to Crawford, who immediately recused, and then reassigned to Columbia County Circuit Court Judge W. Andrew Voigt. Voigt declined to hear the petition prior to Sunday’s event, so Kaul went to the Court of Appeals and subsequently the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Both turned down his request to stop Musk from giving away two $1 million checks, which he did on Sunday evening.
Violating the statute is a Class I felony, which can carry a fine of up to $10,000, imprisonment of up to three-and-a-half years, or both.
A county district attorney or the Wisconsin attorney general would be responsible for filing criminal charges for violations of the statute, Godar said. It’s also possible someone could try to bring a civil claim to have a judge halt the payments. So far that hasn’t happened.
Now back to our reader question about Musk’s political activities as a federal employee.
Musk, in his role as a “special government employee” leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), is bound by the Hatch Act, a law prohibiting “political activity while you’re on duty, while you’re in the workplace, and the use of your official position to influence the outcome of an election,” said Delaney Marsco, the director of ethics at the Campaign Legal Center.
But special government employees like Musk are only bound by the Hatch Act while they’re on duty representing the federal government, Marsco said, so the world’s wealthiest man “is allowed to engage in political activity that might otherwise be prohibited as long as he’s not on duty when he’s doing it.”
The Hatch Act is intended to “maintain a federal workforce that is free from partisan political influence or coercion,” according to a memo from the U.S. Office of Special Counsel.
Wisconsin Watch readers have submitted questions to our statehouse team, and we’ll answer them in our series, Ask Wisconsin Watch. Have a question about state government? Ask it here.
The payment to a Green Bay man, which Musk announced Wednesday night on his social media platform X, is similar to a lottery that Musk’s political action committee ran last year in Wisconsin and other battleground states before the presidential election in November.
The upcoming election on Tuesday, filling a seat held by a liberal justice who is retiring, will determine whether Wisconsin’s highest court will remain under 4-3 liberal control or flip to a conservative majority. The race has become a proxy battle over the nation’s politics, with Trump and Musk getting behind Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate in the officially nonpartisan contest.
The campaign for the Democratic-supported candidate, Susan Crawford, blasted the $1 million payment from Musk as an attempt to illegally buy influence on the court in a state where Tesla, his electric car company, has a lawsuit pending that could end up before the court.
“It’s corrupt, it’s extreme, and it’s disgraceful to our state and judiciary,” Crawford spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said in a statement.
No legal action against Musk’s payments to voters has been filed in Wisconsin with the Supreme Court election five days away.
Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause in Wisconsin, said the payments were a last-minute attempt to influence the election.
“Whether or not Wisconsinites will believe this is legitimate or not probably won’t be settled until after the election,” he said. “But this is not what a Wisconsin Supreme Court election ought to be decided on. Races for the high court are supposed to be on judicial temperament and impartiality, not huge amounts of money for partisan purposes.”
Musk’s political action committee, America First, announced last week that it was offering $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges.” He did not say there would be $1 million prizes at that time, but in his post on Wednesday said an additional $1 million award would be made in two days.
It was not clear who determined the winner of the $1 million or how it was done.
Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the White House election last year, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.
It is a felony in Wisconsin to offer, give, lend or promise to lend or give anything of value to induce a voter to cast a ballot or not vote.
The Musk petition says it is open only to registered Wisconsin voters, but those who sign it are not required to show any proof that they actually voted.
The petition says: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”
The petition, while designed to collect data on Wisconsin voters and energize them, also is in line with Trump’s agenda alleging that “activist” judges are illegally working against him. Trump’s administration is embroiled in several lawsuits related to his flurry of executive orders and Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy.
During last year’s presidential race, Philadelphia’s district attorney sued in an attempt to stop the payments under Pennsylvania law. But a judge said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.
America PAC and Building for America’s Future, two groups that Musk funds, have spent more than $17 million trying to help elect Schimel, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. Musk also has given the Wisconsin Republican Party $3 million this year, which it can then give to Schimel or spend on the race.
More than $81 million has been spent on the race so far, obliterating the record for a judicial race in the U.S. of $51 million set in Wisconsin just two years ago, according to Brennan Center tallies.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk and political groups he backs are pouring millions of dollars into the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court as the electric vehicle company sues to overturn a state law that prevents it from opening dealerships — a case that eventually could make its way to the high court.
Tesla’s multiple attempts to open its own dealerships in Wisconsin keep running up against a state law that allows only third parties, not auto manufacturers, to operate them. The company filed a lawsuit in January seeking an exemption, just as two Musk-backed political action committees started supporting the Republican-backed candidate, Brad Schimel, over his opponent, Susan Crawford, who is supported by Democrats.
Musk, who is the world’s wealthiest person and is running President Donald Trump’s initiative to slash the size of the federal workforce, has given $3 million to the Wisconsin GOP while groups he supports have funneled more than $17 million into the race. The contributions are part of an extraordinary spending spree in the race, making it by far the most expensive judicial race on record in the United States. Total spending has eclipsed $80 million with days still to go before the final day of voting on April 1.
Schimel’s critics have accused Musk of trying to buy a favorable ruling for Tesla should the dealership case make it to the state Supreme Court. Here are details of the law and Musk’s lawsuit:
Why can’t Tesla set up Wisconsin dealerships?
State statutes generally prohibit vehicle manufacturers from owning or operating dealerships in Wisconsin and give that franchise to third parties. The law was intended to prevent manufacturers from undercutting independent dealerships.
Nearly 20 states have similar prohibitions, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. The laws took hold in the 1930s as carmakers started to rely on independent dealerships to sell and service vehicles so they could focus on production. Later, independent dealers wanted to prevent manufacturers from opening their own dealerships and driving them out of business.
Tesla sells its vehicles directly to consumers, who can have their vehicles shipped directly to them or to dealerships in 27 states. Because the company can’t set up its own dealerships in Wisconsin, buyers there must have the cars delivered to them or travel to dealerships in neighboring Minnesota or Illinois to pick them up.
Tesla officials have been working for almost a decade to secure an exemption from the law. In 2017 and 2021, Republican legislators introduced bills that would permit Tesla dealerships, but none of those made it out of the Legislature. They inserted an exemption for Tesla dealerships into the 2019-21 state budget, but Democratic Gov. Tony Evers used his partial veto powers to erase the provision.
The Wisconsin Automobile and Truck Dealers Association has been fighting to preserve the law. Bill Sepic, the association’s president and CEO, told The Associated Press that Tesla should have to follow the law like any other vehicle manufacturer. He said the statutes exist to enable third parties to act as consumer advocates “in making one of the larger purchases of their life.”
What is the company doing now?
Tesla filed a lawsuit in state court in January seeking permission to open four dealerships in Wisconsin.
The company argues that independent dealers wouldn’t meet its standards and says selling vehicles at its own dealerships is in the public interest because unaffiliated dealers’ prices are higher and less transparent.
Its lawsuit says that the state law barring manufacturers from running their own dealerships violates economic liberty rights and that the prohibition exists only to protect independent dealers from competition.
The case is pending in Milwaukee County Circuit Court, though no hearings have been scheduled.
The state Justice Department is defending the law. An agency spokesperson declined to comment.
How did Musk get involved in the state Supreme Court race?
Schimel, the conservative state Supreme Court candidate, is vying with Crawford for an open seat on the high court.
The race is the most significant election nationally since the November presidential contest, providing an early barometer for Republicans and Democrats given the intense interest and outside spending it has generated. It also will determine whether the highest court in the perennial presidential battleground state will flip from liberal to conservative control with major cases involving abortion, union rights and congressional redistricting on the horizon.
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Susan Crawford, left, and Brad Schimel wait for the start of their debate March 12, 2025, at the Lubar Center at Marquette University Law School’s Eckstein Hall in Milwaukee. The hourlong debate was the first and only debate between the candidates ahead of the April 1 election. (Joe Timmerman / Wisconsin Watch)
Eight days after Tesla filed the Wisconsin dealership lawsuit, Musk tweeted: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!”
To be clear, there has been no evidence of widespread voting fraud in Wisconsin. Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in the state over then-President Donald Trump in 2020 was affirmed by a recount and an independent audit. Trump, a Republican, won the state last November and offered no objections then to the voting or ballot-counting.
According to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice, Musk-backed groups America PAC and Building America’s Future have spent more than $17 million to support Schimel with ads and flyers. The money he donated to the state Republican Party has been used to help Schimel, who has been endorsed by Trump.
Are the candidates focused on the Tesla case?
Crawford’s supporters contend the timing of the contributions show Musk is trying to ensure that Schimel wins and creates a conservative majority on the court that ultimately would rule in Tesla’s favor. Crawford said during a debate with Schimel this month that Musk “has basically taken over Brad Schimel’s campaign.”
Sepic, president of the state dealership association, said Wisconsin should elect the candidate who enforces the prohibition but declined to comment when asked if he thought Schimel or Crawford would do that.
Schimel has repeatedly said he would treat any case involving Tesla the same as any other when he considers whether to hear it or recuse himself. Schimel also has insisted that the donations from Musk and his groups do not make him beholden to them.
Crawford has said the same thing about billionaires who have donated to her campaign, including George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker. Soros has contributed $2 million and Pritzker $1.5 million to the Wisconsin Democratic Party, which has funneled the money to Crawford’s campaign.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
The Elon Musk–founded America PAC has spent at least $11.5 million on the April 1 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, WisPolitics reported March 24.
That doesn’t count another $3 million the PAC gave to the Wisconsin Republican Party, which can funnel unlimited funds to candidates.
Both support conservative candidate Brad Schimel over liberal Susan Crawford.
The nonprofit campaign finance tracker OpenSecrets tracks cumulative independent group spending in state supreme court and appellate court races through 2024.
Its figures indicate the biggest spender nationally is the Citizens for Judicial Fairness, which spent a total of $11.4 million in the 2020 and 2022 Illinois court races.
OpenSecrets’ data cover about two-thirds of the states; not all states report independent expenditures.
The progressive A Better Wisconsin Together has spent $9.2 million on ads backing Crawford, according to ad tracker AdImpact.
Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler said March 18 he believed Musk’s spending might be a national record.
This fact brief is responsive to conversations such as this one.
The election to fill a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat has become a referendum not only on the new administration, but on Elon Musk, the billionaire who has become one of President Donald Trump ‘s top financial backers and the architect of his efforts to slash the federal workforce.
The April 1 election is the first major test in American politics since Trump secured a second term in November. It will serve as a crucial barometer of enthusiasm in both parties heading into next year’s midterm elections and is happening in a critical battleground state that Trump won by less than a percentage point.
It’s also a test for Musk himself. The Tesla CEO’s nascent political operation, which spent more than $200 million to help Trump win in November, is canvassing and advertising in Wisconsin on behalf of the conservative candidate. A win would cement his status as a conservative kingmaker, while a loss could give license to Republicans distancing themselves from his efforts to stymie government functions and eliminate tens of thousands of jobs.
“This is the first major election held since Donald Trump took office,” said Anthony Chergosky, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse. “And I think notably Democrats are concentrating more on Elon Musk than Donald Trump.”
Musk, who is the race’s biggest donor by far, has also inserted himself into the race, holding a get-out-the-vote event on his X platform Saturday.
“It might not seem important, but it’s actually really important. And it could determine the fate of the country,” he said. “This election is going to affect everyone in the United States.”
April 1’s election will determine majority control of a court facing critical issues: abortion rights, collective bargaining and voter access. They include decisions that could have major implications for the 2026 midterms and 2028 presidential election, particularly if they end up hearing challenges to the state’s congressional maps, which could theoretically swing the balance of power in Washington if they are considerably redrawn.
The Supreme Court race is officially nonpartisan, but the campaign has been anything but. Brad Schimel, the Republican-backed candidate, has openly courted Trump’s endorsement, which he received on Friday night, as he campaigns against Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, the Democrat-backed candidate.
The Waukesha County judge and former Republican attorney general attended the president’s inauguration in January and has said that he would be part of a “support system” for Trump. Earlier this month, he attended a “Mega MAGA rally” where he posed for a picture in front of a giant inflatable version of the president, which had a “Vote Brad Schimel Supreme Court” poster plastered on its chest.
He spoke on Musk’s get-out-the-vote call on Saturday. And he joined the president’s eldest son on stage at a get-out-the-vote rally, where Donald Trump Jr. said a Schimel win would protect his father’s agenda and keep up GOP momentum.
“We can’t just show up when Trump’s on the ticket,” he said at a brewery in the Milwaukee suburbs. “You have to engage because it’s not just about now, it’s about that future. This presidency could be put to a halt with this vote.”
Schimel has also resurfaced long-debunked conspiracies about voter fraud that Trump has embraced, urging his supporters to vote early to “make this too big to rig so we don’t have to worry that at 11:30 in Milwaukee, they’re going to find bags of ballots that they forgot to put into the machines.”
Still, he pledged to judge any case that comes before him on its merits — including potential cases involving Trump and Musk.
Republicans have cast the race as a chance for Trump’s loyal supporters to rally around their leader and push back against liberal judges they accuse of working to stymie his agenda.
Mailers from Musk’s America PAC feature photographs of the president. “President Donald Trump needs your vote,” they read. Others warn that “Liberal Susan Crawford will stop President Trump’s agenda.”
America PAC is also offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition in opposition to “activist judges” — and another $100 for each signer they refer.
Republicans have argued that if even 60% of the voters who cast ballots for Trump in November turn out, Schimel can win, helping to drive momentum for the party heading into next year’s midterms.
“In theory, the opposition party should be energized, but we’re feeling very good about the energy on our side of the aisle,” said Andrew Iverson, Wisconsin GOP executive director.
Andrew Romeo, senior adviser to the Musk-backed group Building America’s Future, which has spent millions on the race, issued a recent memo advising Schimel’s campaign to remind voters that he is “a strong conservative and Trump ally.”
Two groups funded by Musk have so far spent more than $14 million on the race, according to a tally by the liberal Brennan Center for Justice — with plans to spend around $20 million total.
Musk donated another $2 million to the Wisconsin Republican Party on Thursday, the same day the party gave $1.2 million to Schimel’s campaign.
Under Wisconsin law, contributions to candidates are capped, but candidates can accept unlimited cash from state parties, which in turn can accept unlimited cash from donors.
His spending has helped make the race the most expensive judicial election in the nation’s history, with more than $73 million spent so far, according to the Brennan Center, breaking the record set by another Wisconsin Supreme Court race two years ago.
Crawford has also received her own support from billionaires, including philanthropist George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
Democrats want race to be the people vs. Musk
Democrats are hoping to channel their voters’ outrage at the Trump administration by casting the race as an opportunity to stand up to Musk. After nearly a decade of running against the president, they see Musk as a potentially more divisive figure who can motivate their base voters to turn out.
“This race is the first real test point in the country on Elon Musk and his influence on our politics, and voters want an opportunity to push back on that and the influence he is trying to make on Wisconsin and the rest of country,” said Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman.
State Democrats have hosted a series of anti-Musk town halls, including one featuring former vice presidential candidate Tim Walz, and featured Musk heavily in ads.
Crawford has also seized on Musk, going as far as to refer to her opponent as “Elon Schimel” during a recent debate.
“There’s so many people who are desperate for a way to fight back against what Trump and Musk are doing nationally,” said Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic Party chair, and see the race as an “opportunity to punch back.”
Wikler said the party had seen an “explosive surge” in grassroots and small-donor fundraising from across the country tied to Musk’s involvement. Both in Wisconsin and nationally, Democrats are packing town halls and angrily protesting the Trump administration’s firings of thousands of workers and shutdown of agencies. They have also show disillusionment with their party’s own leaders.
“Most voters still don’t know who Crawford and Schimel are, but they have extremely strong feelings about Musk and Trump,” he said.
What’s at stake for Musk
Musk said Saturday that he became involved in the race because it “will decide how the congressional districts are drawn in Wisconsin,” echoing Schimel’s claims that Crawford would push through new congressional maps that could favor Democrats.
Schimel’s campaign has relentlessly attacked Crawford for participating in a call with Democratic donors that was advertised in an email as a “chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026,” a reference to the state’s redistricting fights that have played out for years.
Crawford has said that she didn’t know that that was how the call had been billed when she joined and that nothing of that nature had been discussed while she was on the line.
“In my opinion, that’s the most important thing, which is a big deal given that the congressional majority is so razor-thin,” Musk said. “It could cause the House to switch to Democrat if that redrawing takes place, and then we wouldn’t be able to get through the changes that the American people want.”
Musk has also been giving money to Republican members of Congress who have echoed his calls to impeach federal judges whose decisions he doesn’t like.
He has other interests at play.
Democrats and Crawford have noted that, just days before Musk’s groups started spending on the race, Musk’s electric car company Tesla sued Wisconsin over a rule banning car manufacturers from operating dealerships — forcing buyers to purchase Teslas out of state.
The case could ultimately go before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Associated Press writer Scott Bauer contributed to this report.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
A group funded by billionaire Elon Musk is offering Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” a move that comes two weeks before the state’s Supreme Court election and after the political action committee made a similar proposal last year in battleground states.
Musk’s political action committee America PAC announced the petition in a post on X on Thursday night. It promises $100 for each Wisconsin voter who signs the petition and another $100 for each signer the voter refers.
The campaign for Susan Crawford, the Democratic-backed candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court, said Musk was trying to buy votes ahead of the April 1 election. The offer was made two days after early voting started in the hotly contested race between Crawford and Brad Schimel, the preferred candidate of Musk and Republicans.
The winner of the election will determine whether the court remains under liberal control or flips to a conservative majority.
Musk’s PAC used a nearly identical tactic ahead of the November presidential election, offering to pay $1 million a day to voters in Wisconsin and six other battleground states who signed a petition supporting the First and Second Amendments.
Philadelphia’s district attorney sued in an attempt to stop the payments under Pennsylvania law. But a judge said that prosecutors failed to show that the effort was an illegal lottery, and it was allowed to continue through Election Day.
America PAC and Building for America’s Future, two groups Musk funds, have spent more than $13 million trying to help elect Schimel, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. The winner will determine whether conservative or liberal justices control the court, with key battles looming over abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.
Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman accused Musk of “trying to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to secure a favorable ruling in his company’s lawsuit against the state.”
Just days before Musk’s groups started spending on the Supreme Court race, electric car manufacturer Tesla sued Wisconsin over its decision to not allow it to open dealerships. Musk is the CEO of Tesla and also the head of rocket ship manufacturer SpaceX. Tesla’s case could ultimately come before the Supreme Court.
“Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud,” Musk posted on X, just eight days before the lawsuit was filed in January.
Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for America PAC, referred to the post on X announcing the petition when asked for comment on Friday. A spokesperson for Schimel’s campaign did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment.
Crawford and her allies have made linking Schimel with Musk a key plank of their campaign. The Wisconsin Democratic Party released a new ad this week accusing Musk of trying to buy the seat for Schimel, a close ally of President Donald Trump.
Schimel earlier this week campaigned with Donald Trump Jr. at an event where the president’s son said electing Schimel was essential for protecting Trump’s agenda. America PAC has also been making that argument in flyers it’s handing out to Wisconsin voters.
Musk’s other group, Building America’s Future, said in a memo Thursday that to defeat Crawford it must “present Schimel as a pro-Trump conservative.”
The new petition says: “Judges should interpret laws as written, not rewrite them to fit their personal or political agendas. By signing below, I’m rejecting the actions of activist judges who impose their own views and demanding a judiciary that respects its role — interpreting, not legislating.”
The petition, while designed to collect data on Wisconsin voters and energize them, is also in line with Trump’s agenda alleging that “activist” judges are illegally working against him. Trump’s administration is embroiled in several lawsuits related to Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency effort to downsize the federal bureaucracy.
Wisconsin Watch is a nonprofit and nonpartisan newsroom. Subscribe to our newsletters to get our investigative stories and Friday news roundup.This story is published in partnership with The Associated Press.
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