By Patricia Lopez / Bloomberg Opinion
In Wisconsin, a deeply polarized swing state where elections often are decided by fractions, liberal Judge Susan Crawford won a decisive victory against conservative Judge Brad Schimel and sent a shiver through the MAGA universe.
That’s because Schimel had been backed by two of the heaviest hitters in American politics: President Trump and Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, whose unelected role at Trump’s side has given him immense power. As of Wednesday morning, with 98 percent of the vote counted, Crawford was ahead by 10 percentage points in a state Trump carried by less than 1 point last fall.
And in the end, the association with Trump and Musk may have proved more of a liability than an asset to Schimel.
Musk, in particular, committed a cardinal sin in politics: He overshadowed the candidate and inadvertently made the race a referendum on him. He poured an estimated $20 million into the race, helping make it the most expensive judicial contest in U.S. history, with a total price tag that could top $100 million. Musk touted Schimel constantly on X, the social media platform he owns, and proclaimed in grandiose terms that the election’s outcome would determine the “fate of humanity.”
But all this comes at a time of rapidly escalating unpopularity for Musk. Since Trump empowered him through the unofficial Department of Government Efficiency, Musk has been firing federal workers with abandon; some 18,000 federal workers live in Wisconsin. Musk has slashed federal programs vital to Wisconsin farmers, gutted research grants that fuel the state’s many universities and threatened Social Security, which more than 1.3 million Wisconsinites depend upon.
Against that backdrop, voters could hardly be blamed for resenting Musk’s ham-handed efforts to influence their Supreme Court race.
Musk staged his own rally in Wisconsin over the weekend, donning the traditional cheesehead hat and giving two $1 million checks to voters, ostensibly to build awareness of the race. He also turned civic engagement into a side hustle, offering Wisconsinites money to post pictures with “Vote Schimel” signs.
A video posted by a Musk PAC showed a woman named Ekaterina Deistler talking about her $1 million check, saying, “I did exactly what Elon Musk told everyone to do: sign the petition, refer friends and family, vote, and now I have a million dollars.”
Crawford addressed such tactics in her victory speech, saying, “Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our Supreme Court. And Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price, our courts are not for sale.”
Wisconsin’s judicial elections are ostensibly nonpartisan, but Crawford’s win keeps the court under liberal control, maintaining its 4-3 majority. It also spells an end to GOP hopes of resurrecting gerrymandered redistricting maps that might have affected the balance of power in the U.S. House. A conservative court kept those maps in place for years before the majority flipped to liberals in 2023, resulting in more impartial maps. A liberal court also is expected later this year to consider the state’s total abortion ban, which is not being enforced but has been on the books since 1849.
Crawford’s victory, against daunting odds, provides welcome proof that money does not always determine the victor. It is, after all, not dollars that vote; it’s people. And if ever that message, affirming the power of everyday Americans, was needed, it’s now.
But there are warnings here, too. Musk has exposed vulnerabilities in the election system that must be addressed.
His $1 million lottery, a gimmick he also used in Pennsylvania in 2024, amounts to a barely disguised bribe, though so far has not been found by a court to violate he election law.
Wisconsin law explicitly bars offering voters anything of value in return for their ballots. Yet when Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul sued Musk and his American PAC, he couldn’t get a hearing. He sought a temporary restraining order from the state Supreme Court to stop the million-dollar giveaway, but was rebuffed without explanation.
States clearly need to pass stricter election laws. Laws prohibiting anything resembling a bribe or inducement to vote a particular way must be clarified. Loopholes that allow lotteries or other payments must be closed. Demanding more transparency, with disclosure of all donations and spending, is imperative. Courts, after all, are supposed to be impartial.
States should also pass stricter ethics rules for the judiciary, requiring judges to recuse themselves from cases involving major donors. Musk has a case working its way through the Wisconsin court system now, in which he is suing to allow Tesla to have its own dealerships in the state. Schimel had refused to say he would recuse himself if the case came before him.
Tuesday’s results affirm the power of voters, but the power of money is always in the background. Without stricter safeguards, we increase its odds of overshadowing the voice of the people.
Patricia Lopez is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering politics and policy. She is a former member of the editorial board at the Minneapolis Star Tribune, where she also worked as a senior political editor and reporter.
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