Progressive judge wins Wisconsin election despite Musk's multimillion-dollar investment

WashingtonProgressive Judge Susan Crawford has won the election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court despite Elon Musk's multimillion-dollar investment to favor her rival, conservative Judge Brad Schimel. Musk, who has arrived to deliver million-dollar checks to voters, has been at the heart of Crawford's campaign message: "The people against Musk." Tuesday's elections were key to deciding the court's majority's leanings and had also become a referendum on Trump, in the first election of his second term. The defeat in Wisconsin is even more painful for the president to swallow when on the same day in Florida, the Republicans managed to retain their slim majority in Congress by a much slimmer margin than expected.

Using the same tactic he used last November to catapult Trump to the presidency, Musk injected money into Schimel's campaign through his platforms, such as America First, held campaign events, and gave away money to voters. The Wisconsin judicial campaign was the most expensive in the country's history, with more than $81 million. Crawford's victory, with 54.4% of the vote according to the Associated Press count, ensures the progressive majority (4 to 3) of the state court.

Musk had invested millions in Schimel's favor because, if he won, it would have changed the court's mind at a time when it has cases related to abortion rights and the redistricting of congressional electoral districts on the table. In the last election, Wisconsin was one of the seven key states that were in dispute and Trump won it by just 0.86 percentage points more than the Democratic candidate, Kamala Harris. The delimitation of the legislative districts of this state, which in 2023 were already changed because they were considered to be unconstitutional and favored the Republicans, may again be key in the 2026 midterm elections. In the midst of a scenario in which Democrats have lost almost all effective countervailing mechanisms against the president, the mid-term are the greatest horizon for regaining control of the legislature and mounting opposition.

Crawford's victory also marks the possibility of the start of a new anti-Trump resistance. Democratic mega-donor George Soros and billionaire Democratic Governor of Illinois JB Pritzker are some of the major backers the progressive judge has had in her campaign, which has become an electoral laboratory for the Democratic Party. Seeking a new message to reconnect with voters, Crawford had focused her candidacy on a fight against Musk as the leading exponent of an oligarchy that governs with Trump. "I have to speak for just a minute or two about my opponent: Elon Musk," the judge would say at her rallies, where she emphasized the idea that the richest man in the world was spending huge amounts of money to defeat her.

Bittersweet victory for Republicans in Florida

In Florida, there were also elections this Tuesday to choose the congressmen who will fill the two empty seats left by Republicans Michael Waltz and Matt Gaetz when they accepted Trump's offer to enter the government. Waltz is currently Secretary of Homeland Security and is at the center of the scandal of the Signalgate, while Gaetz never even took office, resigning due to the investigation into his sexual relations with a minor. Retaining both seats was crucial to maintaining the slim Republican majority in the House of Representatives, with 218 seats compared to 213 Democrats.

Trump's candidates, State Senator Randy Fine and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis, have both managed to win in their respective districts, according to AP projections.But it's a bittersweet victory, as they won by a much narrower margin than expected in a heavily Republican state, where the tycoon defeated Kamala Harris by 10 points.

Although both contested districts are deeply Republican, in recent days the Democratic candidate for District 6, Josh Weil, had shown promise in overtaking Fine. Nervousness within the Republican Party was evident on election eve, as Waltz had won in that same district in November by a 30-point margin. The margin in the AP projection is less than half of that achieved by the current Secretary of Homeland Security: 14%. Fine obtained 56.7% of the vote compared to 42.7% for his rival.

Patronis' victory in District 1 against Gay Valimont, a gun control activist, was already a given before the election. Patronis defeated Valimont by 14.8 percentage points (57% to 42.2%). In November, Gaetz defeated the same candidate by 32 percentage points, more than double the margin achieved by his replacement.

Voters went to the polls the day before the president escalated the trade war with the approval of reciprocal tariffsThe president won office on November 5th with a promise to end rising grocery prices. Two months after taking office, he acknowledged that prices are likely to rise due to his tariff policies and even had to admit that he doesn't rule out a possible recession.