Democrats running to be Wisconsin’s next governor and Republican frontrunner Tom Tiffany are calling for a swift, transparent and independent investigation into the Madison police shooting of 38-year-old Corey Ruiz.

The post Candidates for Wisconsin governor react to Madison shooting appeared first on WPR.

The League of Women Voters of Wisconsin has filed a lawsuit aimed at giving voters who are worried their absentee ballots might not get counted a chance to cast provisional ballots on election day.

The post Lawsuit aims to give voters worried about mail delays an election day option appeared first on WPR.

A group of Democrats is suing the Wisconsin Elections Commission in an attempt to let voters change their absentee ballots before the August primary.

The post Democrats file lawsuit challenging guidance on absentee ballots appeared first on WPR.

Democrat Joel Brennan is campaigning for governor as an everyman with experience running a major agency in Gov. Tony Evers' administration. In the primary's closing weeks, he's trying to simultaneously introduce himself and make the case he's the candidate best equipped to win.

The post Democrat Joel Brennan says he can win the governor’s race — if voters get to know him appeared first on WPR.

The winner of the August 11 election will face incumbent John Leiber, the only Republican currently holding one of Wisconsin's constitutional offices.

The post Democrats running for Wisconsin Treasurer each claim they can turn out rural voters appeared first on WPR.

The Green Bay City Council will receive a presentation next month on the city’s internal investigation into how duplicate absentee ballots were sent out in back-to-back elections this year.

The post Green Bay City Council OKs presentation on internal investigation into duplicate ballot issue appeared first on WPR.

The Wisconsin Election Commission says it's illegal to bet on an election that you also voted in. Now, Polymarket and Kalshi are pushing back.

The post Polymarket, Kalshi push back after Wisconsin Elections Commission warns against ballot betting appeared first on WPR.

WASHINGTON — New data reveals the number of women running in the 2026 elections is slightly up from 2024, but experts say there is still progress to be made with women’s representation in public office overall. 

The number of women running for governor has reached an all-time high this election cycle, and the number seeking a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives could also set a record, according to July 20 data from The Center for American Women and Politics, or CAWP. 

The center, part of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, collects data on women’s representation in federal, state and local government. 

The center also conducts research and runs educational programs on the role of women in politics. Its mission is to increase female involvement in public life. 

Women in the midterms

There are 85 women major-party candidates running for governor across 36 states this year, a number that significantly exceeds the previous record of 69, set in 2022. 

Fifty-one of those women are Democrats, another record, and 34 are Republicans. 

On the congressional level, 580 women are currently major-party contenders for the U.S. House, a figure that is just three away from the 2018 and 2020 record of 583 women candidates. 

That record could be broken once Louisiana reaches its candidate filing deadline for the House on Aug. 7, according to CAWP.  

The number of Democratic House candidates who are women has already reached an all-time high at 387. The remaining 183 women running are Republicans. 

In the Senate, 64 women from major parties are running for a seat, exactly half of them Democrats and half of them Republicans. The record for women Senate candidates was set in 2022 at 70. 

Fairly high numbers of women would need to emerge as Senate candidates in Maine and South Carolina to beat that record of 70, said CAWP Director of Data Chelsea Hill during a media briefing with other CAWP research experts on Tuesday.

A day before the briefing, Republican Sen. Darline Graham of South Carolina, who was sworn in July 14 to replace her late brother, Lindsey Graham, announced plans to run for a full six-year term following the encouragement of President Donald Trump. 

Although record numbers of congressional women candidates have not yet been reached in either the U.S. House or Senate, the overall number of women running for Congress is up compared to the last election cycle. 

In 2024, the number of women who sought seats in Congress dropped after having previously increased for three consecutive cycles, a phenomenon that CAWP later described as “evidence of stalled progress toward gender parity,” Hill said. 

Despite the increase in women seeking office over the years, female representation is still low when taken as a percentage of all candidates running for Congress and state governors. 

According to another set of CAWP data from July 20, women make up 27% of total candidacies for the U.S. House and 23.9% of the total for the Senate in 2026. About 25% of gubernationarial candidates are women. 

Milestones within reach 

But at the same time, CAWP experts said at the media briefing, there are many milestones women could achieve in the 2026 election cycle, including firsts for women in certain government positions and for “women of specific racial and ethnic backgrounds and within either party.” 

They pointed to current Sens. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, a Republican, and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, a Democrat, who are both running to become the first women to serve as governors of their respective states. 

And Deb Haaland, the former U.S. secretary of the Interior currently running in New Mexico, could become the first-ever Native American woman governor in any state if she wins in November. 

At the congressional level, names such as Milat Keros, Aisha Wahab, Denise Powell and more have the potential to break barriers for women in public office. 

Keros is in place to become the first Black woman to represent Colorado, Wahab the first Middle Eastern or North African woman to serve from California and Powell the first Democratic woman to represent Nebraska in Congress.

At the end of the media briefing, CAWP Scholar and Director of Research Kelly Dittmar said the center’s 2026 candidacy data could be used as a tool to study and open up a broader discussion about women’s political pathways, nodding particularly to Blackburn and Klobuchar’s gubernatorial runs. 

“When we think about women moving to be chief executives of a state as a potential pathway to the presidency, (it’s) also something we need to always keep our eye on,” she said. 

CAWP’s data focuses on major party candidates and will continue to be updated regularly to account for upcoming state filing deadlines and congressional primary results. 

Madison state Sen. Kelda Roys is leaning on her experience and attention to detail as she tries to distinguish herself in the Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor.

The post Kelda Roys leans on experience, attention to detail in second bid for governor appeared first on WPR.

On the Democratic side, Wisconsin's primary race for governor has been full of twists and turns. That includes multiple candidates dropping out and another who dropped out before jumping back in.

The post What happens if I voted early for a candidate who dropped out? Can I change my vote? appeared first on WPR.

Three Democratic candidates for governor told a citizens’ group that communities most affected by state policy decisions should have a greater role in shaping them during a Monday night forum in Madison focused on affordability.

The forum was hosted by Kaleidoscope Wisconsin, a coalition of organizations that are “rooted” in marginalized communities in the state, at the Center for Black Excellence in Madison. Angela Russell, founder of the Undercurrent, a consulting and advisory practice for organizations that care about social impact, moderated the event. It took place with just three weeks to go before  the primary election and following a massive shakeup in the race last week, when Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez dropped out because of a financial scandal and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, who had previously dropped out, got back into the race with the endorsement of Gov. Tony Evers.

State Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes participated. Crowley and Joel Brennan, former head of the Department of Administration, did not attend.

Throughout the evening, the candidates stated that Wisconsin’s affordability challenges stem from systemic failures in housing, healthcare, education and taxation, and agreed on the need for more progressive taxation and greater investment in public services.

Roys said she wants to end the state’s private school voucher program, restore collective bargaining rights for public employees and open the state employee health insurance plan to more residents. She criticized state subsidies for data center developers. 

Barnes talked about reforming the manufacturing and agriculture tax credit, expanding BadgerCare through a public option and increasing taxes on wealthy individuals and corporations.

Hong highlighted her plans to tax millionaires and billionaires, expand Medicaid, increase shared revenue for local governments, raise the minimum wage and establish guaranteed paid leave.

While candidates articulated their policy ideas, they also repeatedly turned to a broader question: Who has influence over state government and whose voices are included in decision-making?

Hong said people in local communities know what they need and don’t need to be told what they need. She said politicians should be public servants who ensure people have access to programs, adding that she doesn’t see food, housing, education and healthcare as benefits but instead sees them as rights and “things that are needed in order to build economic security and freedom.”

Hong said an effective governor must listen to communities and that “the people” should be the ones government answers to, rather than “lobbyists” or those with the most access to the governor’s office.

“We need not only a new type of politics, but somebody right now who isn’t answering to industry and who isn’t being pressured by the status quo,” Hong said. 

Barnes said he still sees himself as the community organizer he once was, adding that elected officials need to remain connected to the communities they represent and that it can be easy for politicians to “get into office and lose touch.”

“It’s impossible to lose touch if you’re still going home to the same place every night,” Barnes said, adding that he learned as lieutenant governor how important it was for him to “bring people who are  representative of communities that have been left behind” as well as “people who challenge me” into his circle.

Roys said the solutions to the problem facing Wisconsin are not unknown, but that the “political will” to make change has not been there. She said that Republicans have broken the “positive feedback loop” that should exist between people and lawmakers. She described a cycle in which voters give power to policymakers, who then are expected to deliver results and return to communities to understand what more needs to be done.

“It is up to us to demand change,” Roys said, adding that people should hold her accountable as well.

The candidates were asked what they have learned from each other. 

Hong said she was inspired by remarks Barnes made over the weekend about the dramatic twists and turns in the governor’s race. She recalled a speech he gave in which he commented on Evers’ decision to endorse Crowley, and his reversal of his decision to drop out of the race, saying it showed why “so many people are frustrated and want nothing to do with the Democratic establishment.” Some supporters of Barnes and Hong have complained that Crowley  is being elevated by “establishment” Democrats to stop more progressive Democrats from getting through the primary.

“There’s been a lot of news in the governor’s race,” Hong said. “It’s been a little bit chaotic…I think Mandela gave his strongest remarks at a forum that I’d heard in a while.”

Hong called it “very empowering.”

“He was speaking to a community that I think still feels very much like the elections are just being decided for them,” Hong said. “And to use the time that you’re supposed to talk about yourself, to share remarks with the community… this election belongs to the voters. It should always be about the voters.”

Hong also said she has learned how to explain policy in clearer ways from Roys.

Roys said she has learned how to be more active and authentic on social media from Hong, and agreed with Hong about Barnes’ comments over the weekend, saying he “really distilled out what this is about.”

Barnes, who noted that the candidates have known each other for a long time, said Hong has brought “newness” to the forefront.

“If you want to build a real democracy, it is about not just working with the basic folks that you’ve known forever, of course, that’s the foundation of the work, but we’re in the business of addition,” Barnes said. “For so long, people hadn’t wanted to be a part of our politics… Over the last week, the people are fired up. People are ready for change, and I think it would be unwise for some people to seek to dismiss that.”

Barnes said he appreciated that Roys has sharp “elbows” and is willing to be critical and fight, including with members of her own party. He noted the primary has been very long, but said that it is good for democracy.

“These long primaries suck,” Barnes said, but he added, “it is good for people to be able to push each other, to challenge each other, to be able to generate ideas from one another, to have a moment to see what works, what doesn’t work, and ultimately to give people a choice. The more that choice is taken away the more we do to undo all the good work that has happened.”

All three Democratic candidates, along with Brennan and Crowley, are competing for a spot on the November ballot to take on U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany, the presumptive Republican nominee. In-person absentee voting starts on July 28. The primary is Aug. 11.

The contentious Democratic primary for Wisconsin governor has given Republican U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany a chance to campaign on his own terms. He's presented himself as quintessentially Wisconsin but down played his partisan voting record and his ties to President Donald Trump.

The post As the Democratic primary heats up, Republican Tom Tiffany has campaigned for governor on his own terms appeared first on WPR.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley jumped back into the race for governor Saturday in a last minute attempt to take control of the contest just 24 days before the August primary.

The post Crowley returns to governor’s race in last-minute effort to win Democratic primary appeared first on WPR.

Hours after Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez's announcement Friday that she is suspending her campaign for governor, Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley signaled that he's preparing to get back into the Democratic primary.

The post After Rodriguez’s departure, Crowley signals return to Wisconsin governor’s race appeared first on WPR.

UPDATE: This story has been updated to include reactions. 

Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez is suspending her campaign for governor after a week of trying to navigate the fallout of a financial disaster. 

“As we have continued to dig into our financial reports, it has become clear that there are issues that would be an ongoing distraction —  not just for this campaign, but for the primary and for Wisconsin,” Rodriguez said in a statement and a video posted to X. “This race is too important to Wisconsin to let that happen.” 

Rodriguez’s troubles emerged when she announced she fired her campaign manager, Kara Spencer, on Sunday due to “serious mismanagement and inaccuracies in campaign finance filings she prepared.” Rodriguez’s January finance reports showed hundreds of duplicate contributions, and during a Monday press conference, Rodriguez said she had hundreds of thousands of dollars less than she expected, but was determined to push ahead, calling it a “bump in the road.”

While she sought to continue on, additional mistakes arose when she submitted her campaign finance reports Wednesday. Her initial report showed she had less than $35,000 in the bank and over $150,000 in debts to sort through. 

However, her campaign put out a statement saying that she had raised $219,000 since July 1 and would be launching a new campaign ad. Her campaign also said that it was still “actively working to ensure our financial records are accurate and complete.” 

The initial report showed a payment to WI Federation of Republican Women, which was a mistake that was fixed in the amended report. However, the amended report also dramatically increased the tally of her campaign dollars to show she ended the period with $643,206. 

The campaign later said that report was a mistake, and the campaign did end the period with only $34,991 in cash-on-hand after all. 

Rodriguez in her statement on suspending the campaign said that she “cannot in good conscience allow these questions to become a cloud over an election that Democrats need to win.”

“I am deeply hurt and betrayed by what happened,” Rodriguez said. “As I said on Monday, part of being a leader is taking swift action, doing the right thing, and being as honest as possible when there’s a problem.” 

“This was never just about any one race or any one candidate,” Rodriguez continued. “This is about protecting Wisconsin from a legislature hell-bent on putting corporations over schools and insurance companies over patients. It’s about showing the rest of the country that we can win here, govern here, and fight for the middle class — and that Wisconsin will lead the way.”

Her exit from the race is the third in recent weeks, narrowing the field to four candidates: former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, state Rep. Francesca Hong, state Sen. Kelda Roys and Joel Brennan, former head of the Department of Administration.

There are just 25 days until Wisconsin’s primary election.

Rodriguez’s campaign appeared to be growing momentum ahead of the financial scandal partially due to the endorsements of her former Democratic opponents, Missy Hughes, the former CEO of the Wisconsin Economic Development Corp., and Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley. Crowley dropped out last Wednesday and endorsed Rodriguez on Thursday, around the same time that Rodriguez said she realized something was amiss with her financials. 

According to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, there is a push to get Crowley to re-enter the race, and two Democratic sources told the newspaper that Gov. Tony Evers is “very seriously considering” backing that effort. Late Friday, Crowley released a statement from “Democratic candidate for governor David Crowley” calling a press conference in Milwaukee at which he will make an announcement at 11 a.m. Saturday.

Evers has so far stayed out of the race. When the two-term governor announced his retirement, however, he left open the door for endorsing in the primary saying “never say never” and “if there’s somebody who really needs support, and I want them to win, I might get in.”

Hughes also called on Crowley to get back into the race in a post on X.

While some Democrats sought to pull Crowley back into the race, candidates still in the race highlighted their campaigns  and hoped to pull supporters over to their campaign. 

Brennan, the only other current or former member of Evers’ administration still in the governor’s race, was the first to issue a statement Friday.

“I deeply respect Lieutenant Governor Rodriguez and the ideas and energy she brought to this race,” said Brennan. “This is no doubt disappointing for her and people who supported her campaign, and I am committed to joining her in the fight to protect the Wisconsin we love.”

Brennan has been among the most vocal critics of how the Rodriguez campaign had managed its finance and compliance operation. He emphasized when he submitted his own report this week that her difficulties had weakened her as a candidate in the general election against the likely Republican nominee, U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany.

“While a lot has changed in the Democratic primary, one thing has not: we need a governor who can win and who will fight for Wisconsin to get things done,” said Brennan, adding that he was “the candidate who will get big things done.”  

Sen. Kelda Roys followed shortly after with a call Friday “to unite the party so that we can defeat Tom Tiffany and deliver a Democratic trifecta.”

Both Brennan and Roys have finished further back in polls on the race to date. Until this week Rodriguez, Barnes and Hong have been the top candidates in polling.

The Republican Party of Wisconsin Chair Brian Schimming said in a statement that Democrats are “in full meltdown mode.” 

“With zero clear candidate and lackluster fundraising, any hope Democrats had has turned into a dumpster fire,” Schimming said. “As Democrats fight among themselves in primaries and scramble for resources, Republicans are organized, well-funded, and laser-focused on victory in November.”

The nation’s election infrastructure is vulnerable to cyberattacks by foreign actors, President Donald Trump said during a primetime address Thursday night, citing a batch of documents he declassified — but providing no proof broad interference actually occurred or affected an election outcome.

Democrats and advocates quickly criticized the remarks as another attempt by Trump to give Republicans an advantage in crucial midterm elections and sow distrust of results, following his firing of members of the Election Assistance Commission, demands by his administration for state voter rolls, an executive order limiting mail-in ballots and more.

Russia, China, Iran, North Korea and some non-state groups “have the capability to compromise U.S. election infrastructure,” Trump said, quoting one of the documents, which were compiled by White House and intelligence community staff. The document said its authors did not know if any adversaries planned to interfere in elections.

Trump claimed that voter rolls in at least 18 states were “bought, stolen, or hacked by China” ahead of the 2020 election. The attempted methods of interference, he said, ranged from influencing voters to trying to produce fake ballots in favor of Democratic nominee Joe Biden.  

Standing behind a lectern at the White House, Trump said during the 2020 election, the People’s Republic of China carried out the “largest compromise of election data in history,” and said varyingly that China had illicitly accessed tens of millions or up to 220 million voters’ personal data. 

“Our purpose in disclosing this information is not to weaken confidence in (elections), but to earn that confidence by confronting vulnerabilities and correcting them very, very quickly,” he said. “And that’s what we’re doing.”

Trump announced he was immediately declassifying five sets of documents that he said proved foreign interference in the election and 2018 midterms, as well as “shocking vulnerabilities in our election infrastructure.” 

“Just as disturbingly, this vital information has, for many years, been covered up and hidden from you, the American people,” he said.

He claimed that the election vulnerabilities were known by members of the “deep state” who included top members of the intelligence community and worked to hide “the extent of China’s sinister election meddling,” including while he was president prior to and during the 2020 election. 

He further accused Biden’s Department of Justice of killing any investigation into the matter and preventing its disclosure. 

The documents were posted on a whitehouse.gov webpage Thursday evening.

Trump also said the vulnerabilities were another reason to pass the SAVE America Act, a bill that in its various versions would restrict voter access by adding requirements to register and cast ballots, including photo IDs. The bill, which is stalled in the U.S. Senate, does not include funding for election security infrastructure. 

Midterms impact

Many Democrats, including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, said the remarks were not about the 2020 cycle, but were ultimately meant to undermine confidence ahead of this year’s midterms.

“Trump knows he has lost American families,” Schumer said in a statement following the address. “He knows he has made their lives more expensive, endangered their friends & families with an unnecessary war, and embarrassed the country on the global stage. And rather than pivot his policies, he is working to rig the midterms before a single vote has even been cast. We won’t let him.”

Former vice president and 2024 Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris wrote shortly before Trump’s speech that he wanted the American people to believe their vote does not matter. 

“He wants you to lose confidence in our electoral system so you stay home this November,” she wrote on X. “He knows how discontent the American people are, and he wants to make sure that you do not vote.” 

Election forecasters say the most likely result of the midterms is that the GOP retains control of the U.S. Senate and Democrats gain a majority in the House.

Chinese meddling attempts

During his roughly 25-minute-long remarks, Trump avoided explicitly repeating his debunked claims the 2020 election was rigged, only implying it at one point.

“We’re taking swift action to ensure that sensitive voter data is better protected so we can never be bought, we can never be hacked, and we can never watch a stolen election again,” he said.

Instead, Trump said the documents showed U.S. elections are “vulnerable to being rigged and stolen.”

He said China did try to meddle with voter registration and influenced public opinion against him by paying U.S. journalists “large sums of money to write more negative articles about him.” He did not say that was the reason he lost the election and he did not identify the journalists.

According to the Election Assistance Commission, voter rolls are sometimes commercially available and are often obtainable through public records requests. 

Trump said another set of documents revealed a scheme by a get-out-the-vote group in Muskegon, Michigan, to file fraudulent voter registrations. He did not say the scheme, which has been discredited, affected any votes counted in Michigan’s 2020 election.

In a statement, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said the state’s elections “are safe and secure.”

“Any suggestion otherwise is designed to undermine our voters’ basic rights,” she said.

Trump also claimed that 278,000 non-citizens are registered to vote in the U.S., citing a Department of Homeland Security report released shortly before his speech. That figure may be higher, he claimed, because Democratic-led states have not shared their voter information. 

The White House documents released Thursday link to a one-page document created by the department, which cites a “review” of voter information in four states: California, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Nevada. It does not reference any specific data. 

Throughout his speech, Trump took aim at the media, including NBC News and ABC News, which had both said they would not broadcast his speech live. CBS ultimately broadcast a portion of his speech in a special report after it began. 

2020 claims

Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election began almost immediately after his loss. 

Trump and his allies filed dozens of lawsuits challenging the results of the election, nearly all of which were dropped or thrown out for lack of evidence. 

The post-election campaign culminated in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack by Trump’s supporters on the U.S. Capitol in an attempt to disrupt Congress’ certification of Electoral College results. A U.S. House committee investigating the attack concluded Trump was responsible for inciting it by knowingly lying to his supporters about the election results. 

The investigation also found Trump sought to use Department of Justice resources and his influence among state-level Republicans to reverse the results.

Trump also faced a federal indictment for his conduct leading up to the riot. That prosecution was dropped when he won the 2024 election. After returning to office last year, Trump also pardoned everyone convicted of charges related to the attack.

Dems push back: ‘totally bogus’ 

Immediately after Trump’s remarks, Democrats slammed the president’s claims about China’s election interference. 

Virginia Sen. Mark Warner said in a post on X that the “shocking ‘bombshells’ about China are totally bogus.” 

“The fact is our intelligence agencies unanimously agreed that China did not even try to change a single vote in the 2020 election,” he wrote. “A single concurring opinion suggested China may have tried to sway voters’ opinions… but that’s been public knowledge since 2021.”

During his speech, Trump, without evidence, cast doubt on the integrity of the Los Angeles mayoral race and the state’s recent gubernatorial race. 

California’s primary election was Tuesday, June 2, but election officials are allowed to take roughly a month to complete vote counting. The lengthy process is a product of the state’s large population, as well as its reliance on voting by mail. 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom echoed other Democratic officials and said the speech, which he described as “the ramblings of a mad king,” was about the midterms. 

“Before a single vote has been cast, he’s already laying the groundwork to rig this election and convince YOU not to trust the results if they don’t go his way,” he said. “Don’t fall for it.” 

Democrat Peter Burgelis has dropped out of the race to unseat Republican U.S. Rep. Bryan Steil.

The post Milwaukee alder Peter Burgelis drops out of race to unseat US Rep. Bryan Steil appeared first on WPR.

Reading Time: 2 minutes

Billionaire Elon Musk likely broke Wisconsin law when he promised to hand out $1 million checks to voters in the 2025 state Supreme Court election, a bipartisan panel has found.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission last week referred two complaints to the Brown County district attorney’s office, which can choose to bring criminal charges over violating the state law against election bribery. Prosecutors have 40 days to report back to the commission.

Musk, the founder of SpaceX and CEO of Tesla, was deeply involved in the effort to flip majority control of the highest court in battleground Wisconsin.

The tech titan and groups he supported spent at least $20 million on the candidate backed by Republicans, Brad Schimel. However, he lost by 10 percentage points to Democratic-backed candidate Susan Crawford.

A month after the lopsided loss, Musk announced that he would be spending far less on political campaigns. Spending on the election topped $100 million, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history.

The complaints, which are confidential under state law, were brought by voters in Milwaukee and Green Bay, which is in Brown County. Musk handed out checks at a rally there just days before the election.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission, consisting of three Democrats and three Republicans, voted 5-1 in closed session on Thursday to refer the complaints to the district attorney, the commission’s spokesperson Emilee Miklas said.

Brown County District Attorney David Lasee, a Republican, did not immediately return a message seeking comment Tuesday.

The motion approved by the elections commission said it found probable cause that Musk broke Wisconsin law by making a social media post offering $1 million to people who voted in the Supreme Court election “in order to induce them to vote in that election.”

Spokespeople for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

Musk gave $1 million checks to 3 Wisconsin voters

Three Wisconsin voters received checks from Musk, including two who got them in person at the Green Bay rally. Two weeks before the election, Musk’s political action committee, America PAC, offered $100 to voters who signed a petition in opposition to “activist judges,” or referred someone to sign it.

Crawford’s win kept liberals in control of the state Supreme Court, and their majority grew to 5-2 after Democratic-backed candidate Chris Taylor’s victory this year.

Musk’s spending on the 2025 race has already resulted in one lawsuit filed by a government watchdog group, the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which seeks to prohibit him from ever again offering cash payments in the state.

That lawsuit is pending in Brown County. It alleges that Musk and two groups he funds violated prohibitions on vote bribery and unauthorized lotteries and that his actions were an unlawful conspiracy and public nuisance.

Attempts to stop Musk failed in 2025

Wisconsin’s Democratic attorney general sued to stop Musk from handing over the checks to two voters, but was rejected by state courts.

Musk’s attorneys argued in legal filings in 2025 that Musk was exercising his free speech rights with the giveaways and any attempt to restrict that would violate both the Wisconsin and U.S. constitutions.

The payments are “intended to generate a grassroots movement in opposition to activist judges, not to expressly advocate for or against any candidate,” Musk’s attorneys argued in court filings.

Musk’s political action committee used a nearly identical tactic before the 2024 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. A judge in Pennsylvania said prosecutors failed to show the effort was an illegal lottery and allowed it to continue through Election Day.

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.

Elon Musk likely broke law by promising voters $1 million payouts, Wisconsin Elections Commission says is a post from Wisconsin Watch, a non-profit investigative news site covering Wisconsin since 2009. Please consider making a contribution to support our journalism.

Last week, the Wisconsin Elections Commission voted to issue guidance that in most cases, Wisconsin voters will no longer be able to change their vote before election day after casting their ballot early.

The post The Wisconsin primaries are less than a month away. Here’s what to know before you vote. appeared first on WPR.

The Wisconsin Elections Commission has referred two complaints against billionaire Elon Musk to the Brown County district attorney's office, saying it found "probable cause" to believe Musk broke state election bribery laws last year.

The post Wisconsin Elections Commission says Elon Musk likely violated bribery law appeared first on WPR.