Dane County Judge Susan Crawford has defeated Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel in Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court election, with major networks calling the race less than two hours after polls closed.
NBC News called the race for Crawford — the liberal candidate — shortly before 10 PM Eastern Time, while CNN called it shortly after. Crawford was ahead by roughly 15 points at the time of NBC's call, vastly outperforming former President Joe Biden's margins in his 2020 victory in the Badger State. With her win, Crawford will serve on Wisconsin's highest court for a full 10-year term.
Crawford's victory also ensures that the court's 4-3 liberal majority will remain in place for at least another year, while the court makes decisions on contentious issues including abortion rights, voting rights, congressional redistricting maps and collective bargaining for unions, among other issues. Journalists, commentators, legal experts and academics on social media also noted that the election could be seen as a referendum on Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk — who spent tens of millions of dollars of his own money to help Schimel.
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On Bluesky, University of Michigan professor Don Moynihan called Musk "the biggest loser in Wisconsin," saying his "brazen effort to buy a state supreme court did not just fail — it undermined his image of political kingmaker." Wisconsin-based attorney David Kronig also celebrated Tuesday's election result by declaring that Wisconsin was "not for sale." Canadian journalist Simon Little wrote on his Bluesky account: "It is possible that Musk's involvement has now become a political liability,"
"We are about to get histrionics and outrage over this result — calling it rigged, saying the Democrats cheated, that Soros somehow bribed the electorate — from the biggest crybabies who control most levers of power and who tried to buy this one," wrote University of Texas-Austin professor Mike Boylan-Kolchin.
"I had the sense that Wisconsin voters would give a middle finger salute to the richest man in the world," Oregon-based lawyer David Sugerman posted.
Musk made himself a center focus of the Wisconsin supreme court election, even going so far as to hand out two million-dollar checks to petition signers just days before Badger State voters went to the polls. During a Fox News interview on Tuesday, Musk predicted that if Crawford won the election, it would be a precursor to Democrats taking back the U.S. House of Representatives and having "nonstop impeachment hearings and subpoenas."
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