The Nation: The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Has Become All About Elon Musk

[Dennis Donovan]

The Nation - The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Has Become All About Elon Musk

The richest man in the world is the biggest spender on behalf of a right-wing effort to take control of a state Supreme Court.

John Nichols
Politics / March 20, 2025

Wisconsin’s April 1 Supreme Court race is on track to become the most expensive judicial election contest in American history. The Wisconsin Democracy Campaign (WDC), a watchdog group that monitors electioneering in the state, says that the total spending on the contest could reach as high as $100 million. That’s thanks not only to the more traditional campaigns of the two contenders for the open seat on Wisconsin’s high court—progressive Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and right-wing Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel—but also to jaw-dropping spending by billionaire-funded groups making so-called “independent expenditures.”

In particular, groups funded by Elon Musk.

Samantha De Forest-Davis, the research director for the WDC, reports that independent spending in this year’s court contest is 103 percent above where it was at this point in the high-stakes 2023 race that was won by liberal Justice Janet Protasiewicz. Protasiewicz’s victory gave the court a 4–3 liberal majority for the first time in decades. This year’s contest—to fill a seat being vacated by a retiring liberal justice—will decide whether the highest court in the nation’s ultimate swing state will remain liberal or flip back to the right.

The stakes are high. And the through-the-roof spending reflects that reality.

“These numbers just continue to increase daily,” De Forest-Davis told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, pointing out that, as of two weeks before the April 1 election, the democracy campaign has counted $29.24 million in independent expenditures. At the same point in the 2023 campaign, the independent expenditure figure was $14.41 million.

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