About nine minutes into his time onstage in Green Bay last night, Elon Musk neatly explained why he — a billionaire technologist who is already distracted by a little project in Washington — had poured $20 million and hours of his time into a Wisconsin Supreme Court election.
“What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives,” he said.
The party that controls the chamber, he added, “controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization.”
Anybody not currently serving in the House might consider that last part to be hyperbole. But Musk’s words revealed his stated motivation behind his involvement on behalf of the conservative candidate, Judge Brad Schimel: He sees it as a way of preserving Republicans’ power well beyond Wisconsin.
He has a point. Democrats don’t talk about it in quite such existential terms, but they are widely expected to challenge the narrowly divided state’s congressional maps, which currently favor Republicans, if voters maintain a liberal majority on the Supreme Court.
With Republicans holding a thin majority in the House now, any changes that make it easier for Democrats to win seats could have major consequences in midterm elections next year.
The potential redistricting battle is easy to miss amid the spectacle of Musk’s spending and his giant checks to voters. But both sides agree it is coming, if tomorrow’s election goes Democrats’ way.
“We completely anticipate that there will be a challenge if there’s an opportunity to get those fair maps,” said Marina Jenkins, the executive director of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, whose chairman, former Attorney General Eric Holder, has endorsed Susan Crawford, the liberal justice in the race.
The last three presidential elections were decided in Wisconsin by less than one percentage point. Democrats say the fact that Republicans currently hold six of the state’s eight seats in the U.S. House of Representatives is evidence that the state’s congressional map gives Republicans an advantage. (Two of the Republican-held seats are considered “competitive” by the Cook Political Report; the other six seats are not.)
The fate of those maps has hovered in the background of this race from the beginning. In January, my colleagues Reid Epstein and Theodore Schleifer reported that an email invitation to a briefing for Democratic donors with Judge Crawford described the election as a “chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” Republicans immediately laid into Crawford, accusing her of “selling” the seats.
But Musk’s decision to go all-in on the race undoubtedly changed the conversation. Democrats have run ads urging voters to use the election to reject the billionaire and his federal cost-cutting project. They have pushed to make the vote — which is expected to draw the party’s most loyal voters — a referendum on President Trump.
For a class of political insiders the congressional maps have remained top of mind, if not the top message. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries recently said he wanted to “revisit” the state’s congressional maps to make them more fair. “The only way for that to be even a significant possibility is if you have an enlightened Supreme Court,” he said.
Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, told a crowd in Eau Claire this month that Republicans wanted Schimel to “freeze” the state’s congressional maps in place, “so that Donald Trump will have a majority in the U.S. House regardless of whether these maps are constitutional or not.”
Republicans view Democrats as trying to use the race to set up a power grab and in the final days of the campaign, they haven’t been shy about making their case. Brian Schimming, the chair of the Wisconsin Republican Party, said at a sports bar in Jefferson, Wis., that the race was “as important as the presidency.”
MORE ON WISCONSIN
Three big questions for Elon Musk
Musk’s decision to inject himself into the state’s off-year election means that tomorrow will tell us something important about his evolving role as a political force. Here’s what I’ll be watching for.
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Does Musk’s main-character energy help his party? As my colleague Theodore Schleifer wrote last night, Musk’s appearance in Green Bay was mostly about himself, not about the conservative judge he is backing. It was a bet on his own appeal to Republican voters (as well as the appeal of the money he keeps promising to give away), and the race’s result might help us understand how well that worked.
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How about his money? Two years ago, a liberal Supreme Court justice notched an 11-percentage-point victory over her conservative opponent, helped in part by Democrats’ immense financial advantage (and a groundswell of opposition to the 1849 abortion ban that was in effect at the time). Musk’s heavy spending in the race has helped to erase that financial advantage and buttress the conservative ground game, even if it came with some backtracking. The results could offer some insight into how well his political playbook, first honed during the Trump campaign, works in a statewide race.
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Have Democrats found a formula that works? Wisconsin Democrats have seized on Musk’s contributions to Schimel’s campaign and cast the race as a referendum on Trump and Musk. A lackluster night for Judge Crawford could be a sign the Musk-first strategy isn’t a cure-all for the party’s woes.
MEANWHILE on X
Musk promises cash for selfies
Musk is using his X account as a megaphone. My colleague Kate Conger guides you through his most important messages.
Musk has kept up his unorthodox and cash-based political organizing tactics. In a post on X on Monday, he promised to pay people $20 to post photos of Wisconsinites posing with a photo of Brad Schimel, his preferred candidate in the Wisconsin race.
“Easiest money you ever made!” Musk said on X of his offer. “The goal is to build awareness about the election.”
Paying voters has become a familiar Musk move. He paid voters to sign a petition during the 2024 election. Last week, he told his followers on X that he would hand out two $1 million checks to people who had already voted in the Wisconsin race “in appreciation for you taking the time to vote.”
Musk backtracked after experts said his offer might have violated state bribery laws. Instead, the $1 million checks would go to people who signed a petition opposing “activist judges,” he said.
Just before the rally began, the state’s Supreme Court declined to halt the sweepstakes — allowing Musk to hand out the checks at his rally. One of the payments appears to have gone to a leader in the Wisconsin chapter of College Republicans, according to The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The other, the outlet reports, went to a graphic designer.
— Kate Conger
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