Why Elon Musk, GOP Are Trying to Buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election

When Wisconsin voters head to the polls Tuesday for a special election to fill a vacant seat on the state’s Supreme Court, they’ll be casting a vote in what’s become the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. 

In recent weeks, billionaire right-wing donors like Elon Musk and Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have poured in tens of millions of dollars to support Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate who was previously the state’s attorney general, and is currently a judge on the Waukesha County Circuit.

The sky-high political stakes explain the influx of cash, Wisconsin doesn’t have partisan elections — meaning the candidates running for a judicial seat don’t have an “R” or a “D” next to their name — but candidates nonetheless make their ideological alignments known. Currently, liberals hold a 4-3 majority on the court, but Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring and, should Schimel win, it would flip the court to majority conservative.

These billionaires aren’t just supporting Schimel by funneling millions through various PACs and dark money groups; Musk has been extremely vocal in recent weeks about his support for Schimel, traveling to the Badger State this weekend to campaign for him. A Musk-backed PAC even launched a campaign to pay voters who sign a petition opposing “activist judges,” and recently announced on X a $1 million prize to a voter who signed the petition — a move that appeared to violate state campaign finance laws, prompting Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul to file a lawsuit against Musk and his America PAC.

Susan Crawford, a Dane County Circuit Court Judge, is considered the liberal judge on the ballot running against Schimel. In response to the massive influx of cash spent to support Schimel, a number of left-leaning megadonors, along with the Democratic National Committee, deployed resources to help her campaign in the final days of the election.

Beyond Musk and the Uihleins, a cavalry of right-wing special interest and dark money groups — like the Charles Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity and Turning Point Action — have used their finances and resources to back Schimel. It’s a massive effort for a state Supreme Court race, which until recent years, were normally quiet elections that didn’t get much national spotlight. 

At the heart of the GOP’s massive effort to flip ideological control of Wisconsin’s highest court is a familiar goal: Power — especially when it comes to voting rights and the fight for fair elections.

For instance, in 2022, the court’s conservative majority blocked the use of drop boxes for voting. That ruling was overturned the following year, after the court had gained a progressive majority, allowing dropboxes to be used in 2024.

“So that’s what’s critically important in this election, preserving the right to vote” Jay Heck, the executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin, told Democracy Docket. 

Redistricting could play out similarly. Wisconsin has been at the center of some of the most contentious redistricting battles in recent years — the most recent one ending with the state Supreme Court’s liberal majority striking down state legislative maps drawn by GOP lawmakers in December 2023 as a partisan gerrymander. A conservative majority on the state’s highest court could allow the GOP-controlled legislature’s gerrymander of the state’s congressional map to stand, or give a green light to future Republican gerrymanders.

At least that’s the pitch that Musk is making as he spends millions of dollars to rally voters in Wisconsin. In a recent interview with Schimel hosted on X, Musk said congressional redistricting is the “most consequential” aspect of the race. 

“If the other candidate wins, instead of Justice Schimel, then the Democrats will attempt to redraw the districts and cause Wisconsin to lose two Republican seats,” he said. “In my opinion that’s the most important thing, which is a big deal given that the congressional majority is so razor-thin. It could cause the House to switch to Democrat if that redrawing takes place.”

Heck thinks a conservative-controlled court could also take another look at the state legislative map. 

“It was a 4-3 progressive majority that threw out the Republican gerrymandered maps of 2022,” Heck said. “Certainly a change at the top of the Wisconsin Supreme Court would likely revisit that particular issue.”

Heck thinks that if Democrats wanted to challenge the state’s congressional maps, with the goal to pass new ones that boost representation in Congress, they would have done so by now, considering the Wisconsin Supreme Court has had a liberal majority since 2023. Still, there’s no question that Musk and the GOP are using the issue to mobilize GOP voters.

“I just had not heard discussion of that being a major point, or something that a progressive Supreme Court is likely to take up,” Heck said. “I think that’s a lot more bluster than truth. And I think that needs to be pointed out, because that’s a manufactured concern just to gin up the conservative base in Wisconsin.”