ARI SHAPIRO, HOST:
One race for one seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court has Democrats claiming victory over President Trump and Elon Musk. The election was nonpartisan, but Republican and Democratic backers across the country wrote big enough checks to make it the most expensive court race in U.S. history. A hundred million dollars later, and liberals kept control of the court. Anya van Wagtendonk is here to talk about it from Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. Hi there.
ANYA VAN WAGTENDONK, BYLINE: Hi.
SHAPIRO: What happened in this race last night?
VAN WAGTENDONK: Yeah, I'll start with the basics. It was a race between liberal Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Judge Brad Schimel. They were fighting over the ideological majority on the court, which weighs in on things like abortion rights, labor law, voting law - maybe even congressional redistricting. And so that's why both had big money to spend, like you mentioned, combined of more than $100 million. But the race became especially well-known after Elon Musk, one of the richest people in the world, spent more than 20 million of his own dollars for Schimel, the conservative judge's, campaign. And Crawford had heavy backing from Democrats, and she ended up winning by 10 percentage points. That is a landslide in Wisconsin, and it guarantees that liberals will control the court until at least 2028.
SHAPIRO: So that is a wide victory in Wisconsin. How did Crawford come out so far ahead?
VAN WAGTENDONK: Yeah, it was both a big win and it was called really early. Even a member of Crawford's own team told me they were preparing for a longer night than we ended up having. I spoke with Lilly Goren, a political scientist at Carroll University in Waukesha. She was also pretty surprised by how decisive that win was, and she compared Crawford's performance to that of Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris last November.
LILLY GOREN: Some of the data that I have seen suggests that Crawford did better in kind of every district than Harris had done in 2024.
VAN WAGTENDONK: So Crawford did really well in traditional Democratic strongholds like Milwaukee and the capital city of Madison, but she also outperformed in areas that aren't those traditional strongholds. She even took some counties that President Donald Trump won in November. As for the how of how she did that, Ari, that's really the big question. Some people I've spoken to have described the involvement of Elon Musk as having this kind of lightning rod, kind of polarizing effect. So yes, he spent a ton of money to rev up conservative and pro-Trump voters, but that also really bothered some liberals.
SHAPIRO: Yeah, tell us more about how people are assessing Elon Musk's involvement now that the race is over.
VAN WAGTENDONK: You know, Democrats are really trying to argue that this win for Crawford is a loss for Musk. So just a kind of reminder - 1 out of every $5 in this race came from Musk. And it wasn't just, you know, paying for ads and billboards. He also paid people to sign a petition against, quote, "activist judges." He came to Green Bay and gave away million-dollar checks to voters. And Democrats, you know, didn't perform so well across the country in 2024, you may recall, but this win has Wisconsin Democrats pretty gleeful. Here's party chair Ben Wikler on a press call today.
(SOUNDBITE OF ARCHIVED RECORDING)
BEN WIKLER: When Elon Musk comes to town, Republicans should flee in panic. And for that reason, I hope that Elon Musk stays extremely involved in Republican politics.
VAN WAGTENDONK: But, you know, Republicans say that they are not seeing this as a referendum on Musk or on the Trump administration. The Wisconsin Republican Party is pointing to how they built out their fundraising and canvassing work in this race in support of conservative Judge Schimel, and they say they're looking towards the 2026 midterms.
SHAPIRO: That is Anya van Wagtendonk with Wisconsin Public Radio in Madison. Thank you.
VAN WAGTENDONK: Thank you.
(SOUNDBITE OF MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.
