Madison, Wisconsin (AP) – Judge Susan Crawford saved the close majority of the Liberals at the Wisconsin Supreme Court by defeating the conservative Brad Schimel, but in a way the true loser of the election was Milliardair Elon Musk.
Musk and his affiliated groups sank at least $ 21 million into the normally low-profile race and paid three individual voters to $ 1 million for the signing of a petition to end goose bumps with the Pivotal Battle Battle Batty Batty State Contest. This made the race the first major test for the political effects of Musk, the importance of which initiated in the government of President Donald Trump with his tumultuous cost reduction that the federal authorities reduced.
Crawford and the Democrats who supported them made Muschus the focus of their arguments for keeping the seat and claimed that he had “bought” the election for the most exorbitant justice breed in history.
“Today, Wisconsinites have defended an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our Supreme Court,” said Crawford in their victory speech. “And Wisconsin got up and said loudly that justice has no price, our dishes are not for sale.”
Trump approved Schimel when the race turned into a deputy fight for national political questions. The state’s highest court can decide on cases in which voting rights and redistribution in a state will be at the center of the interim elections of the next year and the presidential competition 2028.
But Musk’s commitment chose this energetic up to 11: “An apparently small choice could determine the fate of western civilization,” said the billionaire on Tuesday in a last call to voters on his social media website X. “I think it is important for the future of the world.”
In particular, America Pac, which was supported by Muschus, spent at least $ 6 million for providers who sent doors across the state to doors. It was a repetition of what the group in the seven most competitive presidents, including Wisconsin, which Trump was worn in November.
But this time the end results were not good for musk. On Tuesday, Schimel scored about 4 percentage points than the other republican candidate supported by Republicans, who had failed the candidate of the public schools, Brittany Kinser, who had no musk investment of Musks several million dollars.
Musk’s defeat of the Hof race was not only due to the destroyed democratic margins in deep blue cities such as Madison and Milwaukee. Crawfords margins were higher in places where the America Pac group supported by Muschus was vigorous. This included Sauk County north of Madison, which Crawford transported by 10 points after Trump won it with fewer than 2 points in November.
On Sunday, Musk led a campaign rally in Green Bay with 2,000 people. Trump won Brown County with 7 percentage points last year, to which the city belongs. But Crawford went on Tuesday.
Overnight, Musk posted on his X platform that “the long fraudster is the left corruption of the judiciary”. In another comment, he seemed to take consolation from the approval of the voters in order to augment the state law of the state to constitutional amendment. The platform was full of criticism by Trump opponents for his commitment in the breed.
“Please send @elonmusk to all tight races!” Jon Favreau, former speech writer for President Barack Obama, wrote.
“Elon Musk is not good at it,” JB Pritzker, democratic governor of Illinois and himself a billionaire who donated to the support of Crawford, published on X.
Some Republicans in question questioned Musk’s decision to rule out the competition, especially since political insiders both expected the GOP to lose competition.
“If there is a chance that it will violate you, is it advisable to insert yourself as a central player and to carry out rallies in the past few days, which continues to mean this point?” said the GOP strategist Marc Short and referred to the town hall located in Green Bay. Short was a top consultant of Trump’s former Vice President Mike Pence.
The voters definitely had musk in mind.
“With the Trump administration there is a crazy situation, and it feels like Elon Musk is trying to buy voices,” said Kenneth Gifford, a 22-year-old student of Milwaukee College when he made his ballot on Tuesday. “I want an actual, respectable democracy.”
Others may not have decided their coordination from the billionaire, but were too aware that the money that flows into their state.
Jim Seeger, a 68-year-old pensioner who previously worked in communication and marketing, said he voted for Schimel because he wants the Republicans to keep their oversized majority in Wisconsin’s congress delegation, which is exposed to a risk if the liberal majority at the court re-shake the cards. But he added that he was disappointed that the election had become a “financial race”.
“I think it’s a shame that we have to spend so much money, especially for a judicial breed,” said Seeger when he was right in Eau Claire.
The Democratic Attorney General of Wisconsin, Josh Kaul, sued Musk to make his payments to the voters if they signed a petition against “activist judges”. The state’s Supreme Court unanimously refused to decide on the case of a technical way.
Musk fell into the race shortly after Trump’s inauguration. The Republicans were despondent that they could win the seat. They lost a long -term conservative majority of the State High Court in 2023, and the Democrats emphasized their educated, politically coordinated coalition in shadowy elections such as the one in Wisconsin.
Musk duplicated and expanded some of the methods he used in the last weeks of the previous year’s presidential race when he spent more than 200 million US dollars for Trump’s order in the seven swing countries, including Wisconsin.
This time Musk offered in addition to the checks of 1 million US dollars to pay 20 US dollars to everyone who registered on the website of his group to knock on doors for Schimel and publish a photo of itself as evidence. His organization promised every voter who signed the petition against liberal judges, $ 100 and another $ 100 for each signatories he referred.
The Democrats were ecstatic to make Muschus a lightning section in the race.
“People don’t want to see Elon Musk’s choice after the election after the election,” said Ben Wikler, chairman of the Democratic Party in Wisconsin, on Monday. “If it works here, he will do it all over the country.”
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Riccardi reported from Denver. The Associated Press Writer Meg Kinnard in Washington contributed to this report.
