Elon Musk has suffered a huge blow after a liberal judge won an election despite the tech billionaire ploughing over £16million into a rival’s election campaign. Judge Susan Crawford defeated Republican candidate Brad Schimel to secure a seat on Wisconsin‘s Supreme Court.
Mr Musk and groups affiliated to him sank at least £16.2m ($21m) into a race which would usually have been low-profile. He also paid three voters £774,000 ($1m) each for signing a petition in a bid to secure a Republican victory in the pivotal battleground state.
It made the race the first major test of Mr Musk’s political impact. He has become a prominent member of President Donald Trump’s administration as he heads up a cost-cutting initiative which has slashed federal agencies. Judge Crawford and the Democrats who backed her made Mr Musk the focus of their arguments for holding the seat, arguing he was “buying” the election, which set records for the costliest judicial race in US history.
The judge said in her victory speech: “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, our courts are not for sale.”
Mr Trump had endorsed Mr Schimel as the race turned into a proxy fight over national political issues. Wisconsin’s high court can rule on cases involving voting rights and re-districting in a state likely to be at the centre of both next year’s midterm elections and the 2028 presidential contest.
But Mr Musk’s involvement raised the stakes. In a last ditch plea to voters on his X social media site, he told his followers: “A seemingly small election could determine the fate of Western civilization. I think it matters for the future of the world.”
America PAC, a political action committee backed by Mr Musk, spent at least £4.6m ($6m) on vendors who sent canvassers across the state, according to the non-partisan Wisconsin Democracy Campaign.
It was a repeat of what the group did across the seven most competitive presidential battleground states, including Wisconsin, which were carried by Mr Trump in November.
The end results this time were not good for Mr Musk despite the millions he spent on Mr Schimel. Mr Musk’s court race defeat wasn’t only because of crushing Democratic margins in deep blue cities such as Madison and Milwaukee.
Judge Crawford’s margins were higher in places where America PAC had been active, including Sauk County, just north of Madison, which Crawford was carrying by 10 points after Mr Trump won it by less than two points in November’s vote.
In Brown County, the home of Green Bay where Mr Musk headlined a campaign rally with 2,000 people on Sunday, Judge Crawford beat Mr Schimel. Mr Trump won the county by seven percentage points last year.
Mr Musk was silent on his X platform in the wake of Crawford’s victory, reposting a message about Vietnam and tariffs, but nothing on the Supreme Court contest.
Milwaukee college student, Kenneth Gifford, 22, said as he cast his vote: “There’s an insane situation going on with the Trump administration, and it feels like Elon Musk is trying to buy votes. I want an actual, respectable democracy.”
Others may not have had their vote decided by the billionaire but were all-too aware of the money pouring into their state. Retired marketing professional, Jim Seeger, 68, said he voted for Mr Schimel because he wants Republicans to maintain their outsized majority in Wisconsin’s congressional delegation. But he said he was disappointed the election had become a “financial race”.
Mr Seeger said: “I think it’s a shame that we have to spend this much money, especially on a judicial race.”
Wisconsin’s Democratic Attorney General, Josh Kaul, had attempted to bar Mr Musk from making his payments to voters if they signed a petition against so-called “activist judges”. The state Supreme Court unanimously declined to rule on the case over a technicality.
Mr Musk swooped into the race shortly after Mr Trump’s inauguration. Republicans were pessimistic about being able to win the seat. They lost a longtime conservative majority on the state high court in 2023, and Democrats have succeeded in getting out the vote of their educated, politically tuned-in coalition during obscure elections such as the one in Wisconsin.
Tesla’s co-founder had built on some of the methods he used in the final weeks of last year’s presidential race, when he spent more than £155m ($200m) on Mr Trump’s behalf in seven swing states, including Wisconsin.
This time, in addition to the $1m cheques, Mr Musk offered to pay £15.50 ($20) to anyone who signed up on his group’s site to knock on doors for Mr Schimel and posted a photo of themselves as proof.
His organisation promised £77 ($100) to every voter who signed the petition against liberal judges and another $100 for every person they referred.