MADISON, Wis.—On April 1, Wisconsin voters will turn out for a special state election that will determine the nation’s political future. The race has become the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history because this battle over a seat in the Wisconsin Supreme Court will have heavy ramifications on issues dealing with abortion access, collective union bargaining, and voting rights.
Right-wing conservative—and President Donald Trump’s co-leader—Elon Musk, is using his gross amount of wealth to influence voters of the state by means that scholars and activists have determined to be illegal, and his failure or victory to influence this race will no doubt have an effect on future elections in the country.
The seven-member Wisconsin Supreme Court has been considered a liberal majority since 2023. Yet, the recent retirement of one of those liberal judges, Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, has put the power of that court back into play.
Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel are both vying for the vacated seat, each with many financial donors behind them. Yet, it has been Musk’s vocal and financial support of Schimel making the biggest splash, mainly due to Musk’s pattern of offering large amounts of money to voters to influence how they cast their ballots. A tactic seen as illegal in several states—Wisconsin being one of them.
Musk’s political action committee—the America PAC—offered Wisconsin voters $100 to sign a petition that expressed their opposition to so-called “activist judges.” This petition comes on the heels of President Trump being blocked by several judges nationwide as he and his regime attempt to carry out unilateral (and illegal) Executive Orders that bypass the authority of Congress and other branches of government.
Musk announced on his social media platform X this past week that he would award one-million-dollar prizes to two Wisconsin voters who signed the petition. Many saw this move as a violation of state campaign finance laws, including Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, who promptly filed a lawsuit against Musk and his America PAC.
This wouldn’t be the first time that Musk has used his wealth to try to directly influence voters.
Toward the end of the 2024 presidential elections, Musk and his PAC began a one-million-a-day voter sweepstakes in a number of swing states.
In Pennsylvania, voters who signed a petition supporting free speech and gun owners’ rights earned a chance to win one million dollars from Musk. Several other winners came from Wisconsin, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, North Carolina, and Michigan battleground states.
When challenged legally, Common Pleas Court Judge Angelo Foglietta ruled that Musk’s sweepstakes would be allowed to continue through the elections. And just like then, it would appear now that Musk’s blatant attempt to directly influence voters will be allowed again in Wisconsin despite what the law dictates.
Attorney General Kaul filed the lawsuit against Musk on Friday. When a county court judge refused earlier in the day to hear Kaul’s request for an emergency injunction to block the payments set to be given out at Sunday’s Wisconsin rally hosted by Musk, Kaul appealed to the state Court of Appeals on Saturday. The Appeals Court denied Kaul’s request.
In the hands of the wealthy
Although Musk would go on to delete his post about the giveaway, he would later post again regarding the million-dollar prizes and the Sunday rally saying that, “entrance is limited to those who have signed the petition in opposition to activist judges,” and he “will also hand over checks for a million dollars to 2 people to be spokesmen for the petition.” One could argue that the last sentence reads like an attempt to claim that the money is for the petition alone and not for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
Yet, if we go by the words of the first million-dollar Wisconsin winner, mechanical engineer Scott Ainsworth, the seat for the next Wisconsin Justice is at the top of the mind for Musk and those who support him. In a video posted on X, Ainsworth encouraged people to sign Musk’s petition and “get out and vote early for Brad Schimel.” He also asserted in the video that “if everyone in the MAGA movement shows up and votes for Brad Schimel, we will win.”
Musk and his PACs have spent millions of dollars in the Wisconsin election, which speaks to a broader issue concerning the electoral system in the United States. When it comes to politicians getting out their message and connecting with voters, it has often been affected by who makes the highest amount of financial contributions.
Depending on the amount of money given, the giver significantly influences the politician they helped. This has resulted in many arguing that democracy often seems to be in the hands of the wealthy, not the everyday working-class voter.
During a speech for his “Fighting Oligarchy” tour, Sen. Bernie Sanders took aim at Musk’s involvement in the state election. Sanders noted that “Musk spent some $270 million to help Trump get elected, and his reward is that he was made the most powerful person in the U.S. government…But it goes beyond that. As bad as that is, the situation is so absurd that Musk is so arrogant that he is even intervening in a Supreme Court election right here in the state of Wisconsin against a candidate who has the very, very extreme idea that maybe women should be able to control their own bodies, not the government.”
During the Sunday rally that Musk held in Wisconsin, he complained about the checks and balances system of the United States government that has been in place since the country’s inception. “I’ve seen some crazy stuff in D.C.,” Musk exclaimed. “Any federal judge can stop any action by the president, you know, of the United States. This is insane. This has got to stop. It has got to stop at the federal level [and] at the state level.”
The X billionaire then handed out a million-dollar check to self-described “Gen Z conservative” Nick Jacobs, the Chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans, and a young woman named Ekaterina Diestler.
What is at stake
The election on April 1 will cast a shadow or a light on several issues that affect working people, from reproductive rights to future seats in Congress.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court is set to rule on the validity of an 1849 state law that made abortion illegal. That law stated that anyone who killed a fetus unless the act was to save the mother’s life was guilty of manslaughter. The law was made void when Roe v. Wade was passed in 1973. Since the overturning of Roe v. Wade, conservatives have made a case that the 1849 law is enforceable once again.
Conservative candidate Schimel has gone on record stating that “the Wisconsin 1849 law is valid” and that “there’s nothing in that law to make it invalid.”
The Wisconsin Supreme Court will also be deliberating on a case involving the rights of public sector unions to collective bargaining. In 2011, the Wisconsin legislature passed Act 10, which stripped nearly all public employees of their collective bargaining rights. In 2024, a judge struck the law down, resulting in the state Supreme Court being set to take it up again. During his time as Attorney General, Schimel said he would defend Act 10.
The redistricting of Wisconsin has also come up, as how it is carried out could determine which party gets ahold of two Congressional seats. In 2023, the liberal majority Wisconsin Supreme Court struck down state legislative maps drawn by GOP lawmakers as a partisan gerrymander (manipulation of the boundaries of an electoral constituency). It could be argued that if the court became a conservative majority, such redistricting would be possible.
If Schimel is elected, it could also be seen as a validation of Trump’s influence. In recent weeks, the conservative candidate has made it a point to align himself with the president on several occasions. Schimel has accused federal judges who block Trump’s executive orders of engaging in “lawfare.”
In a call with both Trump and Schimel to Schimel supporters, the president ranted that “If the radical Democrats win, they’re planning to abuse the law to unilaterally rewrite Wisconsin’s electoral map, creating a tremendous problem, frankly, for our country.” This is even though, as previously mentioned, it was Republican lawmakers who attempted to redraw the state map back in 2023.
The president went on to claim that Schimel would “save our country from these people that are destroying it with their open borders and all of the ‘transgender for everybody’ stuff, men in women’s sports, all of the things that they so strongly stand for.”
Schimel asserted that if 60% of those who voted for Trump voted for him, he would win on election day.
The result of Musk and Trump’s intervention in this Wisconsin race will give a sense of where the country is headed regarding the upcoming midterm elections. Will the MAGA movement gain more political ground, or will the opposition to the Trump/Musk combo push back?
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