Elon Musk May Actually Have Screwed Himself in Wisconsin Election

Elon Musk came up short Tuesday when trying to buy a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court—and he has no one to blame but himself.

In the state election, Judge Susan Crawford secured a whopping 55 percent of the vote, while the Musk-backed Judge Brad Schimel captured only 45 percent. While the position is nonpartisan, this election still determined the court’s ideological lean. Crawford was backed by Democrats, while Schimel was backed by Republicans.

Musk, and the groups linked to him, poured out more than $20 million to back Schimel, including $4.3 million into canvassing efforts. Musk had personally appeared in Wisconsin ahead of the election, donning a cheese hat and ranting about the end of Western civilization. He offered cash rewards of $100 for filling out his petition against activist judges, $20 for canvassing, and $1 million in a sweepstakes (which was won by spokespeople). Still, the billionaire bureaucrat was unable to close the gaping 10-point margin, and now, some are speculating that it was Musk’s attempt to interfere with the election that secured Crawford’s win.

Politico’s senior political columnist Jonathan Martin wrote in the DC Playbook Wednesday morning that Musk had actually made things far worse for the conservative candidate.

“The margin in the Wisconsin court contest indicates that by inserting himself into the race so personally, Musk undermined the GOP-aligned candidate. Democrats’ internal polling had Crawford leading, but not by the 10-point margin she will win once all of Milwaukee has been counted,” Martin wrote.

“Insisting on showing up to campaign in the final weekend of the campaign was self-defeating enough. But it’s hard to think of another state, besides neighboring Minnesota, that would be less receptive to handing out money for votes. These are high-turnout, healthy civic culture states. Musk may not have known that—but why didn’t any Republicans who did steer him away from the cash gambit?” he added.

More than $98 million was spent on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history. More than $67 million went to advertisements, according to AdImpact. Democratic advertisers spent $36 million, and Republican advertisers spent more than $31 million.

It seems that Musk’s ploy to pay for votes with cash didn’t resonate with Wisconsin residents. In fact, The New York Times’ swing map saw a major statewide shift to the left compared to the 2024 presidential election.

“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,” Crawford declared in her victory speech Tuesday night.

While Musk was able to buy Donald Trump the presidency, it seems that he’s lost his touch. Musk’s messy work with the Department of Government Efficiency has tanked public opinion, while protesters across the country target their ire at the billionaire bureaucrat and his beloved Tesla dealerships. While his net worth plummets, Musk has taken to complaining about how hard he has it. Voters do not appear to be responding well.

“Please send @elonmusk to all the close races!” wrote Jon Favreau, former speechwriter and podcaster, in a post on X.

Donald Trump just made the rationale for his tariff “Liberation Day” crystal clear: revenge.

In a post on Truth Social late Tuesday, the president said that the tariffs were his administration’s “fight” against Democrats’ “wild and flagrant push to not penalize Canada for the sale, into our Country, of large amounts of Fentanyl, by Tariffing the value of this horrible and deadly drug in order to make it more costly to distribute and buy.”

Approximately 0.2 percent of American fentanyl seizures occur at the Canadian border, according to federal statistics.

But Trump’s aggressive rhetoric and high levies on Canada have practically shattered the two neighbors’ long-standing allyship. On Thursday, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney announced that his country’s cozy relationship with the U.S. had come to an end, and that Canada would wean itself off American products and services “at speeds we haven’t seen in generations.”

Trump singled out four Republican senators in particular who have pushed back against his tariffs. “They are playing with the lives of the American people, and right into the hands of the Radical Left Democrats and Drug Cartels,” he said, referring to Mitch McConnell, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, and Rand Paul.

“The Senate Bill is just a ploy of the Dems to show and expose the weakness of certain Republicans, namely these four, in that it is not going anywhere because the House will never approve it and I, as your President, will never sign it,” Trump said. “Why are they allowing Fentanyl to pour into our Country unchecked, and without penalty. What is wrong with them, other than suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome, commonly known as TDS?”

Trump and his allies have frequently accused anyone that critiques their work of being mentally ill, effectively undermining the legitimacy of critical thought in the groupthink of his already sycophantic base.

“Who can want this to happen to our beautiful families, and why? To the people of the Great States of Kentucky, Alaska, and Maine, please contact these Senators and get them to FINALLY adhere to Republican Values and Ideals,” Trump said. “They have been extremely difficult to deal with and unbelievably disloyal to hardworking Majority Leader John Thune, and the Republican Party itself. MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!”

Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford was elected to the Wisconsin Supreme Court Tuesday, crushing Elon Musk’s attempt to buy yet another election.

Decision Desk HQ called the race after just 36 percent of the vote had been counted. Crawford held a decisive lead over conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel with 57.9 percent of the vote to his 42.1 percent.

Crawford’s win will ensure that the liberal majority on the court remains, as it tees up to weigh important questions about abortion, union power, election rules, and congressional maps.

Schimel has received more than $20 million from groups associated with Musk, including the more than $4.3 million Musk’s America PAC poured into the Schimel campaign’s canvassing efforts over the last eight weeks. Musk circulated a petition offering Wisconsin residents $100 to sign a statement condemning “activist judges” and giving them the chance to enter a $1 million sweepstakes.

At an America PAC event Sunday night in Green Bay, Musk gave away $1 million to a preselected spokesperson for the petition. Again, he offered people money to sign up to go door-to-door for him. “It’s … thumbs up and hold a picture of Judge Schimel. And that’s it, and you get $20,” Musk said, instructing them to take pictures as proof of their canvassing efforts.

As of Tuesday, more than $98 million had been spent in Wisconsin’s 2025 Supreme Court race, making it the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, according to Axios.

The results of this election will affect several hot-button issues in the state, with potentially national repercussions. The court is expected to weigh a question about whether abortion is protected by the Wisconsin state Constitution, which could potentially upend a preceding decision about a 1849 law banning abortion with no exceptions for rape and incest. While Crawford made supporting abortion access a cornerstone of her campaign, Schimel has supported leaving the ban in place and asserted that there is no constitutional right to abortion.

Musk has expressed particular interest in the court’s July decision to legalize the use of absentee ballot drop boxes in elections. “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” Musk wrote on X in January. though there is no proven connection between the use of drop boxes and widespread voter fraud. The court’s decisions on election rules could have a significant impact on the midterm elections in 2026, and the 2028 presidential election.

The candidates also emphasized their role in approving proposed congressional maps. This is a crucial issue in Wisconsin, where Republicans have amassed six out of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, despite holding thin margins in state-wide races.

A liberal majority on the court could not only keep additional seats out of the hands of Republicans but also ensure that any legislative redistricting pitched by Democrats is readily approved.

In a stroke of revenge for Donald Trump and Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., thousands of employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention lost their jobs Tuesday.

The “reduction in force” affected workers across many departments vital to U.S. public health, including the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, the Division of Population Health, the Division of Reproductive Health, the Division of HIV Prevention, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, and the Division of Environmental Health Science and Practice, Wired reports.

Even programs at the centers on Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion as well as HIV, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Prevention were affected. The HIV program reportedly lost at least half of its workforce. Employees across the agency received notices via email beginning 5 a.m. Tuesday, with some workers showing up to their offices to find their ID badges didn’t work anymore.

“I regret to inform you that you are being affected by a reduction in force (RIF) action,” the email notice stated, according to Wired. “This RIF does not reflect directly on your service, performance, or conduct. It is being taken solely for the reasons stated in the memorandum. After you receive this notice you will be placed on administrative leave and will no longer have building access beginning Tuesday, April 1, unless directed otherwise by your leadership.”

One CDC employee told the magazine, “There has been no effort in allowing staff to transfer projects, programs, or responsibilities.” Even the Freedom of Information Act office at the CDC, as well as the FDA’s communications and web office, were cut.

The move comes among massive layoffs from Kennedy across the entire Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday. Those firings include people at the National Institutes of Health, the Food and Drug Administration, and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

Kennedy has long been an anti-vaccine activist, so the move is in line with his beliefs, especially since he has already revoked over $11 billion in Covid-19 aid funding from HHS. Trump has long held a grudge against the CDC and other public health agencies, blaming them for tanking his first term when it was really his own mishandling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Now he and Kennedy are dealing a crippling blow to public health in America.

Nine House Republicans defected from their party on the parental proxy vote Tuesday in a direct rejection of Speaker Mike Johnson’s plans.

The vote was for a bill regarding whether to allow new parents in the House to have a proxy vote for them in the first 12 weeks after the birth of their child. The legislation, which would have helped new mothers and fathers, was put forth by MAGA Republican Anna Paulina Luna and Democrats Brittany Pettersen and Sara Jacobs. Luna and Pettersen each gave birth recently, and there is no parental leave for members of Congress.

When Johnson and other House Republican leaders went out of their way to block the bill, nine House Republicans—Luna, Kevin Kiley, Tim Burchett, Jeff Van Drew, Greg Steube, Mike Lawler, Ryan Mackenzie, Nick LaLota, and Max Miller—all turned on Johnson, torpedoing his plans and passing the parental proxy bill.

The nine betrayals bothered Johnson so much that he canceled votes in the House for the rest of the week.

Johnson, who doesn’t have the greatest working relationship with Luna, insisted that the parental proxy bill would lead to more representatives voting remotely.

“I believe it’s unconstitutional. I believe it violates more than two centuries of tradition in the institution, and I think that it opens a Pandora’s box where, ultimately, maybe no one is here, and we’re all voting remotely by AI or something. I don’t know,” Johnson said at a press conference last week. “I don’t think that’s what Congress is supposed to be. This is a deliberative body. You cannot deliberate with your colleagues if you’re out somewhere else.”

Republicans are weirdly obsessed with killing this bill, whether it be for anti–work from home reasons, anti-woman reasons, or both.

Pettersen, who is the thirteenth active House member to give birth, spoke in support of Luna’s bill on the House floor while holding her 9-week-old son, Sam, in her arms. Sam was born prematurely.

“No mom or dad should be in the position that I was in and so many parents have found themselves in. It is anti-woman, it’s anti-family, and we need to come together,” she said. “We have a long ways to go to make this place accessible for young families like mine.… For all of the parents here, we know that when we have newborns, it’s when they’re the most vulnerable in their life. It’s when they need 24-7 care.”