Jeffrey Phelps/AP
“Musk has made this a referendum on the idea of an American oligarchy,” Wisconsin Democratic Party chair Ben Wikler told me recently, as he warned about the potential fallout from the $25 million that the world’s wealthiest person spent trying to flip a state Supreme Court seat.
In the first major statewide election since Donald Trump’s 2024 victory, oligarchy lost and democracy won. Progressive candidate Susan Crawford handily defeated Musk-backed candidate Brad Schimel to preserve the liberal majority on the Wisconsin high court through at least 2028.
“Today Wisconsinites fended off an unprecedented attack on our democracy, our fair elections and our Supreme Court, and Wisconsin stood up and said loudly that justice does not have a price,” Crawford said at her victory party Tuesday night. “Our courts are not for sale.”
It’s a seismic event both inside and outside Wisconsin. On a state level, the court could soon decide the fate of an 1849 abortion ban, a law restricting collective bargaining for public sector unions, and Wisconsin’s gerrymandered congressional maps—the latter of which could help determine which party controls the US House in 2027.
But, because of Musk, the race was much bigger than just a judicial election in Wisconsin. Crawford’s victory provides a blueprint for how Democrats and progressives can run against Musk’s plan for oligarchy all across the country—and win.
“The world’s richest man tried to buy Wisconsin’s democracy in order to corrupt Wisconsin’s judiciary, but Wisconsinites demonstrated that our state is not for sale,” Wikler said in a statement Tuesday night. “In a moment of national darkness, Wisconsin voters lit a candle. Let the lesson of Wisconsin’s election ring out across the country: hope is not lost, democracy can yet survive, and the voice of the American people will not be silenced.”
Musk indeed did everything he could to buy the race, investing more money through his political groups than any donor to a judicial race in US history. He paid people $100 to sign a petition against “activist judges” and gave out three $1 million checks to voters, which drew an unsuccessful legal challenge from Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul.
But, unlike in November, Democrats had an effective plan to counter it.
Wisconsin Democrats launched the People v. Musk campaign in early March, with Wikler calling the race “the first referendum on Musk-ism.”
Crawford, a circuit court judge in Madison, made Musk a central part of her messaging. “I need to talk for just a minute or two about my opponent,” she told a crowd of supporters when I saw her campaign in Kenosha. “Elon Musk.”
Wisconsinites may have been repelled by the idea of a billionaire swooping in to purchase an election. “It’s everything that Wisconsin is not,” Democratic State Rep. Robyn Vining told me. “The Wisconsin work ethic is a big deal. You work hard for what you have, and to have the richest man in the world come in and just to buy a seat for his own advantage, it’s not who we are. As a Wisconsinite, that’s infuriating.”
The race became an outlet for frustrated Democrats to turn their anger—at losing to Trump again, at the rudderless leadership of the national Democratic Party, at Musk’s massive campaign expenditures—into organizing. As Katie Whitecotton, a Democratic volunteer who hosted a get-out-the-vote canvass in suburban Milwaukee put it, “Our sorrow has turned into rage and into action.”
On the Friday before Election Day, the same day Musk announced he’d be travel to Wisconsin to hand out two million-dollar checks, I met up with Wikler at the local Democratic Party headquarters in Kenosha. There were still posters up for Joe Biden, Kamala Harris, and Tim Walz, a reminder that the November hangover had not yet fully worn off.
But Democrats were eager to flush the memories of November and fight back against the naked concentration of wealth and power that Musk represented.
“We have a gift and I know that’s weird to say because this is a terrifying time in our country,” Wikler said to a room of Crawford supporters. “Here in Wisconsin, by supporting Susan Crawford, we have a chance to fight back in this moment and say we’ve had enough of these attacks.”
After Harris lost it by 6 points, Crawford carried Kenosha County by about 6 points on Tuesday.
It’s particularly noteworthy that Musk’s effort to buy Wisconsin’s highest court backfired at the very moment that Musk and Trump are threatening to impeach federal judges who rule against the most extreme and unconstitutional parts of the Trump agenda. Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Dallet emphasized that point when she campaigned in suburban Milwaukee for Crawford.
“We realize now, with everything going on, how important our courts are,” Dallet said. “We are the backstop on democracy.”
