Elon Musk’s money can buy him love from Republicans, but not, it turns out, a Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
A campaign awash in more than $25 million in spending by the world’s richest man and groups tied to him ended up much like the other elections of the first months of President Trump’s second term: with a surge of energy from Democratic Wisconsin voters that overwhelmed whatever turnout Republicans could manage in response.
On the same night that Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal candidate, was delivering a thumping to Judge Brad Schimel, the Trump-backed conservative, Democrats saw a silver lining in losses in two special congressional elections in Florida. In both races, they were able to cut sharply into the much wider Republican victory margins from November.
In all, the night’s results demonstrated what Democratic officials have been saying in recent weeks: that their voters are fired up to fight back against a Trump administration set on tearing down large chunks of the federal government.
“Democracy is alive and roaring in the Badger State,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Wisconsin Democratic Party. “In a moment of national darkness, Wisconsin voters lit a candle. Let the lesson of Wisconsin’s election ring out across the country.”
Here are six takeaways from the night’s results.
Democrats finally grabbed the wheel.
It has been months since Democrats had anything to feel good about.
They watched Vice President Kamala Harris lose a race they thought she would win, and then watched Mr. Trump engage in a campaign of retribution and of destruction of federal agencies.
Defeating a battleground-state candidate armed with Mr. Trump’s endorsement and Mr. Musk’s finances is certain to hearten a party that at turns has been depressed and demoralized, and urged by some elder officials to roll over and play dead.
Now Judge Crawford’s commanding victory could give the party reason to believe that it is on the verge of coming out of its collective shell — and might even have a recipe for winning elections in the new Trump age.
“As a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin,” Judge Crawford said to raucous cheers at her victory party Tuesday night. “And we won!”
Elon Musk came away empty-handed.
Nobody expended more political capital in the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest than Mr. Musk, with the possible exception of the candidates. He invested at least $25 million to elect Judge Schimel, posted about it seemingly nonstop on his social media platform, gave money to voters who signed a petition or posted photos in front of polling places and came to the state for a rally where he handed out a pair of $1 million checks.
And in the end, Judge Schimel lost by just a little bit less than the last conservative candidate for the court, who was all but abandoned by Republican donors two years ago.
Even more than Mr. Trump, Mr. Musk emerged in Wisconsin as the primary boogeyman for Democrats. His involvement altered the terms of the election. Instead of making the race an early referendum on Mr. Trump’s White House and abortion rights, Wisconsin Democrats pivoted to make Mr. Musk their entire focus, while Republicans rode the wave of his largess.
Musk was a better villain than Trump was a hero.
Mr. Musk may have been the focal point of Democratic messaging in Wisconsin, but Judge Schimel and Republicans went all in on Mr. Trump.
As Election Day neared, Judge Schimel transformed himself into the president’s chief cheerleader. He turned Mr. Trump’s endorsement into his most-aired television advertisement, wore a MAGA hat on the campaign trail and all but pledged to be a Trump ally on the court.
The dueling strategies left the state’s airwaves dominated by the two men running the federal government, thanks to opposing bets by the two sides on how they would stimulate voter behavior.
Republicans believed that tying Judge Schimel to Mr. Trump would propel the president’s supporters to the polls — after all, Mr. Trump carried Wisconsin in two of the last three presidential elections. And Democrats bet that Mr. Musk would infuriate their voters more than Mr. Trump’s endorsement would benefit Judge Schimel.
The Democratic bet paid off.
A big lift for Wisconsin’s left.
Liberals will now hold a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court through at least 2028, barring any unexpected vacancies. That means abortion and labor rights in the state are all but certain to get a favorable hearing.
At the national level, Judge Crawford’s election could soon lead to a redrawing of Wisconsin’s Republican-tilted congressional maps. Democrats believe that could produce a swing of two seats.
For the state’s Democrats, the court seat also provides a critical backstop in an era of divided state government. With a Democrat as governor and Republicans in control of the State Legislature (though Democrats are optimistic about reclaiming a majority in at least one chamber next year), it will continue to fall to the court to litigate key disputes. The justices in recent years have served as superlegislators, directing policy when the rest of the government is at a stalemate.
In Florida, Trump gets two more loyalists in the House.
Mr. Trump’s decisions to name Matt Gaetz and Michael Waltz, at the time both representatives from Florida, to his cabinet narrowed an already slim House Republican margin. (Mr. Waltz was confirmed as national security adviser, while Mr. Gaetz resigned from his seat and later withdrew from consideration.)
In Jimmy Patronis and Randy Fine, the two Trump-backed Republicans who won special elections for the vacant seats on Tuesday, the president gains two loyalists who appear poised to rally behind his domestic agenda. He can spare very few votes, given widespread Democratic opposition.
Both seats were widely favored to remain in Republican control. But Mr. Fine faced criticism from Republicans in the final days of the campaign, as private polls showed a tighter race than expected in a district Mr. Trump had easily won.
An energized Democratic base did appear to have cut into the margins of victory on Tuesday: Mr. Fine’s 14-point margin with 95 percent of the vote counted was less than half of Mr. Waltz’s 33-point victory. (Josh Weil, the Democratic candidate, called his performance “an incredible gain” in his concession.)
That enthusiasm, however, was not enough to win either Florida seat. Mr. Fine aggressively centered his campaign on his ties to Mr. Trump as a way to drive Republican voters to the polls and framed his success as a sign that conservatives remained widely in favor of Mr. Trump’s agenda.
“My constituents have told me they want me to go up and be a warrior for President Trump, and that’s what I intend do,” Mr. Fine said in an interview earlier on Tuesday. “You have to trust the team captain, and that’s what he is.”
A photo ID requirement to vote in Wisconsin is set in stone.
Showing photo identification at the polls is already Wisconsin law. But Wisconsinites took it a step further on Tuesday and enshrined the requirement into the State Constitution, a sign of growing bipartisan support on the issue from voters even in the face of opposition from Democratic leaders.
Republicans who control the State Legislature pushed the amendment in anticipation that the current law could be overturned under a liberal State Supreme Court. Now that the State Constitution will be amended, undoing the requirement becomes much more difficult.
Whether the new amendment will have a practical effect on voters is less clear, since photo identification has been part of voting in person in Wisconsin for close to a decade.
