Democrats Celebrate Defeating Musk in Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Elon Musk is posting through it. Since polls closed in Wisconsin on Tuesday night, he’s posted about genetically-engineered cat girls, humanoid robots, and Tesla sales, along with multiple AI-generated images of himself and CIA Director John Ratliff. 

He has not posted at all about the person he spent the last several months promoting — both on X and in person: “Superjudge Brad Schimel,” into whose failed state Supreme Court candidacy Musk sunk tens of millions of dollars. Wisconsin voters roundly rejected Schimel — and, by extension, Musk’s efforts to influence the election — on Tuesday night.

Musk has only acknowledged Schimel’s defeat obliquely, writing around 1:23 a.m. ET, “The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary.” A few hours later, at 3:13 a.m., he tried to argue that this was all part of the plan, and that Schimel losing was actually a good thing. “I expected to lose,” he wrote, “but there is value to losing a piece for a positional gain.”

Democrats, meanwhile, couldn’t be more thrilled with Dane County Judge Susan Crawford’s victory. Late Tuesday night, Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers shared a statement on X, celebrating voters’ rejection of Musk’s tactics. “In our state’s history, we have perhaps never witnessed an election as significant, contentious, and divisive — or more expensive. But Wisconsinites proved we will not be bought — not by the richest or most powerful people in the world or anyone else,” Evers wrote.

Sen. Tina Smith (D-Minn.) mocked Musk with a picture of him wearing a cheesehead during a rally in Green Bay on Sunday. Tammy Baldinwin, Wisconsin’s Democratic senator, responded with “26 million ways to lose,” a reference to the number of dollars the Tesla billionaire spent in his failed effort to get Schimel elected. Ben Wikler, the chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, shared Baldwin’s taunt.

And on Wednesday morning, new Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin dispatched a memo to donors and supporters celebrating Crawford’s win and listing the reasons why Democrats are in a better position than they appear.

In the memo, Martin called Crawford’s decisive victory “the clearest example of discontent with Trump and Musk yet.” The world’s richest man, Martin wrote, “poured tens of millions of dollars into the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, promoted a million dollar giveaway to Brad Schimel supporters, and gave his favored candidate a microphone on his social media platform X. … Right wing influencers promoted the importance of this election for weeks, and Musk turned Twitter into his own turnout platform to try to drive turnout for the candidate he bought and paid for.”

Despite it all, Susan Crawford shellacked Schimel, beating him by 10 points. 

In Florida, there were more positive signs. Martin added: “Democrat Gay Valimont claimed the best performance from a Democrat in Florida’s 1st Congressional District this century and became the first Democrat ever to flip Pensacola. In Florida’s 6th, Democrat Josh Weil secured a 20 point overperformance in this Trump + 30 district and confirmed Republicans’ widely-covered concerns about Republican candidate Randy Fine.”

Democrats also recently flipped Trump +21 and +23 districts in Iowa and Pennsylvania, and maintained control of the Minnesota Senate and of both chambers of the Virginia legislature, defeating constitutional amendments pushed by Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry. Republicans have been feeling the pressure, forcing Trump to yank Elise Stefanik’s nomination for U.N. ambassador over fears the party would lose her seat in the House of Representatives.

Hakeem Jeffries, the Democratic leader in the House, also celebrated Crawford’s win in Wisconsin. “Elon Musk spent millions in a failed scheme to buy a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat. Voters decisively rejected Donald Trump, Musk and the rapidly deteriorating Republican brand,” he wrote Tuesday night. “Back up off the American people.”

Democrats, Martin added in his memo to donors, also saw historic levels of grassroots fundraising in February and March. “Yesterday’s election in Wisconsin reaffirmed that the American people won’t tolerate Trump and Musk’s chaos. Our overperformances in Florida showed that no area is out of reach,” Martin wrote. “In the days and months ahead, we will continue to show up and organize everywhere, because we know our message is resonating.”