Wisconsin Republicans Grow Nervous About Elon Musk After Election Loss

Trump-backed Brad Schimel’s loss in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election Tuesday has Republicans in the state freaking out. 

Schimel, who enjoyed $25 million in funding from tech oligarch Elon Musk in the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history, lost handily to liberal Susan Crawford, with Musk’s involvement probably hurting Schimel’s chances. Nearly every county in the state, even ones that voted for Schimel, shifted several percentage points to the left compared to the 2024 presidential election, when the battleground state delivered a narrow victory to Trump.  

As a result, the Badger State’s Republicans are worried. 

“I’m honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag,” Pam Van Handel, the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County chair, told Politico. “I thought [Musk] was going to be an asset for this race. People love Trump, but maybe they don’t love everybody he supports. Maybe I have blinders on.”

The race “throws up a bunch of warning signs for the midterm election,” said Rohn Bishop, the GOP mayor of Waupun, Wisconsin, and former chair of the Republican Party of Fond du Lac County.

“I thought maybe Elon coming could turn these people to go out and vote,” Bishop said, adding “I think [Musk] helped get out voters in that he may have turned out more voters against [Schimel].”

Musk also handed out $1 million checks to select voters in the state and paid cash for people to sign a petition against “activist” judges and to canvas for Schimel, but all of it was for nought. He and Trump still tried to spin the loss as a victory, claiming that a ballot measure enshrining voter ID laws into Wisconsin’s Constitution was the real contest, despite the fact the measure was already state law. 

A major election loss in a battleground state that went for Trump in 2024 is a major warning to Republicans everywhere, not just in Wisconsin. It shows how toxic the GOP has become with Musk in tow, and offers a playbook for Democrats to win in 2026 and beyond.

Lawmakers are calling on the Social Security Administration chief to resign after internal emails revealed that the administration shut Maine off from the late-age insurance program in retaliation for publicly defying the MAGA agenda.

Representative Gerry Connolly called Tuesday for the resignation of Leland Dudek, the acting commissioner of social security. In a release, Connolly’s office shared emails sent by Dudek in which the DOGE acolyte inquired to his staff about which contracts Maine had with his agency and ultimately chose to cancel them, despite being aware that doing so would increase fraud and waste.

“Despite reinstating the contracts on March 7, 2025, and claiming that he did not intend to harm the people of Maine, the emails obtained by the Committee show that Acting Commissioner Dudek knew of the negative impacts of cancelling the programs and was willing to hurt the people of Maine and waste taxpayer money to avenge President Trump,” Connolly’s office wrote.

When Dudek asked his staff to cancel the contracts, he acknowledged in the emails that “while our improper payments will go up, and fraudsters may compromise identities, no money will go from the public trust to a petulant child,” referring to Governor Janet Mills.

Dudek’s request came days after Donald Trump and Mills got into a spat over one of the president’s executive orders in February. During a speech before the nation’s governors, Trump singled out Maine for defying his order banning transgender women from women’s college sports.

“Are you not going to comply with it?” Trump asked Mills at the time.

“I’m complying with state and federal law,” Mills said.

But that wasn’t enough for Trump, who argued that his administration was tantamount to federal law. “You better do it, because you’re not going to get any federal funding at all if you don’t,” he said.

But Mills threw the heat right back at the president.

“See you in court,” she replied.

“Good, I’ll see you in court. I look forward to that,” Trump said. “That should be a real easy one. And enjoy your life after governor because I don’t think you’ll be in elected politics.”

Since then, Trump has nixed federal funding for the University of Maine System, which supports seven colleges in the state.

“This pause is temporary in nature while USDA evaluates if it should take any follow-on actions related to prospective Title VI or Title IX violations,” read an email issued from the Agriculture Department, obtained by the Bangor Daily News last month. “Please take any necessary actions to effectuate this direction from leadership. This pause will remain in effect until further notice.”

The shocking results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election may have far-reaching effects on the U.S. House of Representatives.

In the state election Tuesday, Judge Susan Crawford beat Judge Brad Schimel, cementing a 4–3 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Crawford’s win could have a significant impact on efforts to redraw congressional maps ahead of the 2026 midterm elections.

Crawford’s victory gives Democrats the opportunity to challenge Wisconsin’s congressional maps, and Republicans seem to know it.

Republican Representative Derrick Van Orden told CNN’s chief congressional correspondent Manu Raju Tuesday that if Crawford won, he and Representative Bryan Steil would surely lose their seats as a result of redistricting.

“We both lose,” he said. “So that’s why everyone’s paying attention to this on a national level.”

Van Orden’s concerns about his seat aren’t unwarranted.

In 2023, Wisconsin’s Supreme Court found that the state’s Republican-drawn state Assembly and Senate maps were unconstitutional. The justices determined the earlier conservative-controlled court had been wrong to say that new maps should be required to have the “least change” possible from the already established maps. The redrawn maps saw Democrats gain 14 seats in the state Assembly and Senate.

The Elias Group, a Democratic law firm, then challenged Wisconsin’s congressional maps using the same argument, that the maps drawn up in 2021 were designed to make the “least changes” to Republican-approved maps from 2011. While the liberal-majority court denied the firm’s bid, Crawford’s presence may give Democrats another shot to challenge the “least change” requirement and redraw the maps.

Republicans have amassed six out of the state’s eight U.S. House seats, despite holding thin margins in statewide races. Van Orden and Steil both won their reelection bids in November, but since representatives serve just two years at a time, they will both be vulnerable to being unseated in the 2026 midterm elections.

Earlier this week, Elon Musk, who spent millions backing Schimel in the Supreme Court race, told Fox News that Crawford’s win could not only cost Republicans their majority in the House, which currently sits at a narrow split of 218 Republicans and 213 Democrats, but it could also spell trouble for Donald Trump.

“Losing this judge race has a good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. If you lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings. There will be nonstop hearings and subpoenas,” Musk warned.

Now Musk’s worst nightmare has come true.

Former second gentleman Doug Emhoff’s law firm has cut a deal with the Trump administration, against Emhoff’s wishes—leading to calls from activists for him to resign.

Willkie Farr & Gallagher, where Emhoff is a partner, agreed to provide $100 million in pro bono services for causes the administration supports. The subjects would “represent the full political spectrum, including conservative ideals,” and the firm would also stop engaging in “illegal DEI discrimination and preferences” and choosing clients based on political views, according to a Truth Social post from the president Tuesday.

According to an internal memo, the firm’s executive committee knew that it would be targeted by the administration and believed that taking a deal, which other law firms have also done amid criticism, would be the best way to avoid “potentially grave consequences.”

“We know this news is not welcomed by some of you and you would have urged a different course of action. Needless to say, this was an incredibly difficult decision for Firm leadership,” the memo states.

Trump has used executive orders to target specific law firms in a shakedown attempt, with some, such as Paul, Weiss and Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, cutting deals to avoid retribution from the administration. At least one other firm, Perkins Cole, is challenging Trump in court.

Emhoff has been a partner at Willkie Farr since January, following Vice President Kamala Harris’s defeat in the 2024 presidential election. Emhoff reportedly told the firm’s leadership on Tuesday before the move that they shouldn’t make a deal with Trump and instead should fight, according to The New York Times.

At an event at Georgetown University Law School Tuesday night, Emhoff alluded to his firm’s decision, saying, “The rule of law is under attack. Democracy is under attack. And so, all of us lawyers need to do what we can to push back on that.” At a time when Trump is ignoring the law at every turn in an effort to increase his power, such resistance is needed by all in America.

If conservatives cared about Hillary Clinton’s email scandal, then they should be up in arms over Mike Waltz.

The national security adviser and his staff have been using Gmail to communicate, The Washington Post reported Tuesday.

Waltz and one of his senior aides relied on the commercial email service to discuss “sensitive military positions and powerful weapons systems relating to an ongoing conflict,” according to email receipts obtained by the Post.

But Gmail is not a secure platform to do so on. Users effectively sign away their privacy and metadata to Alphabet, Google’s parent company, when they sign up for a Gmail account.

“Every way you interact with your Gmail account can be monitored, such as the dates and times you email at, who you are talking to, and topics you choose to email about,” Rowenna Fielding, founder of privacy consultancy Miss IG Geek, told The Guardian in 2021.

It’s the latest in a growing series of flubs for Waltz, who made Donald Trump furious by accidentally inviting a journalist to a Cabinet group chat on Signal about bombing Yemen last month. Note here: Gmail is even less secure than Signal, which at least is an encrypted communication app.

In the days after the scandal broke, Wired reported that an account sharing the intelligence official’s name had seemingly left his Venmo profile public. In doing so, Waltz disclosed the names of hundreds of his personal and professional associates, including government officials and lobbyists.

And as the scandals pile up, it’s becoming increasingly clear that Waltz’s behavior is more than just a string of isolated mistakes—instead, they suggest a pattern of haphazard carelessness from an individual who should be one of America’s foremost security experts.

Last week, the German newspaper Der Spiegel reported that several senior administration officials had their personal data—including account passwords, cell phone numbers, and email addresses—listed online.

Some of the compromised Cabinet members include Waltz, as well as National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. The foreign publication was able to track down their information via commercial search engines as well as databases composed of hacked customer data.

Clinton was excoriated by the right for using private email servers as opposed to her government issued address. But the American public has seemingly been able to spot the difference, with a majority of people believing that the Signal scandal matters more than Republicans’ scapegoats.

A Harvard CAPS/Harris poll released Sunday suggested that 60 percent of polled Americans felt that the administration’s decision to use Signal was “wrong”—that included 73 percent of Democrats, 65 percent of independents, and 43 percent of Republicans.

A YouGov survey published last week found that 53 percent of nearly 6,000 polled Americans felt that the Trump administration’s Signal leak was “very serious,” while another 21 percent described it as “somewhat serious.”

Meanwhile, a survey conducted in the wake of Clinton’s email scandal by YouGov and The Economist in March 2015 found that 30 percent of polled Americans felt that Clinton’s server was “very serious.” Another 26 percent noted that it was “somewhat serious” to them.

A federal judge on Wednesday permanently dismissed the corruption case against embattled New York City Mayor Eric Adams, absolving him of his crimes while ensuring that his case will never be brought up again—eliminating any leverage that the Trump administration may have had over the mayor, who quickly capitulated to Trump and the MAGA agenda earlier this year in the hopes of a pardon.

Adams was indicted in September on charges of wire fraud, bribery, conspiracy, and soliciting campaign donations from Turkish officials. He pleaded not guilty and is up for reelection this November.

Trump’s Department of Justice had asked the case to be dismissed without prejudice, meaning the charges could be reinstated in the future. Judge Dale E. Ho of Manhattan refused, dismissing the case with prejudice so that going forward, the charges in the indictment cannot be used as leverage.

Ho also noted that he wanted to minimize the likelihood of Adams being bribed with freedom by the Trump administration.

“In light of DOJ’s rationales, dismissing the case without prejudice would create the unavoidable perception that the Mayor’s freedom depends on his ability to carry out the immigration enforcement priorities of the administration, and that he might be more beholden to the demands of the federal government than to the wishes of his own constituents,” Ho wrote.

When Attorney General Emil Bove ordered state prosecutors to drop the charges against Adams in February, the request was for a dismissal without prejudice, setting up a blatant quid pro quo dynamic that led to multiple staff resignations in protest.

This story has been updated.

Donald Trump has been looking at how to be president for a third term since at least October 2023.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Boris Ephsteyn, who worked in the White House in Trump’s first term and is now one of his personal attorneys, made the unfounded claim back then, during a meeting with an associate, that based on the law, he believed that Trump could run again in 2028.

Trump has asserted in recent weeks that he is “not joking” about staying in office past January 2029, when his second and final term is up, claiming that there are certain plans that would enable him to do so. Other White House officials are claiming it’s a nonissue, such as Karoline Leavitt last week, but only days later Trump contradicted her.

Others in the Trump orbit, such as Steve Bannon, think there’s merit in the idea, and some senior Republicans told the Journal that they believe him. Unnamed sources told the Journal that they see the lack of resistance from law firms, corporations, universities, and Congress as showing that he has the potential to bulldoze resistance to staying in office.

The Constitution bars presidents from being elected to more than two terms. Republican Representative Andy Ogles has introduced legislation to amend the Constitution to allow presidents to serve a third term if one is nonconsecutive. It would be a tall order, as a constitutional amendment requires a two-thirds vote from both the House and Senate, and ratification by three-fourths of the states. But Trump, unfortunately, has often found a way to get around checks to his power.

Elon Musk is on X trying to convince everyone that it was voter ID—and not the state Supreme Court race that he spent millions on—that mattered most, after conservative Judge Brad Schimel lost in Wisconsin to liberal Judge Susan Crawford on Monday night. 

“This was the most important thing,” the world’s richest man posted over the passing of Wisconsin’s voter ID amendment. This new spin goes against pretty much everything he’s said about the importance of the Supreme Court race since he started dumping time and money into it. 

“A Supreme Court election in Wisconsin might determine the fate of America,” Musk posted on X last Saturday. 

“This Wisconsin Supreme Court race might decide the future of America and Western Civilization!” he wrote on Sunday. “It’s a big deal.”

“Vote for Superjudge Brad Schimel in Wisconsin on Tuesday!! “ he posted, along with a very poorly animated image of Schimel. “The Republican House majority is razor thin and the Democrats want to redraw Wisconsin districts to flip the House and stop the government reforms. Super important to vote for Superjudge!!”

Musk even took his cheerleading offline. 

“The reason tonight’s elections are so important is that the judge race will decide whether the Wisconsin districts get redrawn, they’re gonna try to gerrymander Wisconsin to remove two Republican seats,” Musk said on Fox News Tuesday evening. “The House is currently Republican by a razor-thin margin, which means that losing this judge race has a good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. If you lose control of the House, there will be nonstop impeachment hearings, there will be nonstop hearings and subpoenas … everything possible to stop the agenda that the American people voted for when they voted for President Trump.”  

A lot can change in a night. Now Musk is insisting that he “expected” to lose. “There is value to losing a piece for a positional gain,” he wrote on X at the crack of dawn on Wednesday. 

Musk was relentless in his support of Schimel. He appeared at a large rally wearing a cheesehead, paid canvassers $20 an hour to carry out an all-out door-to-door assault on Wisconsin voters, and handed out two $1 million checks, lottery-style, to people who signed his petition hating on liberal “activist” judges. He spent $25 million in total just to lose the race and pivot to saying that a secondary ballot initiative was actually the real prize. And for what it’s worth, Wisconsin has required voter ID for nearly a decade, it just isn’t a state constitutional amendment. That victory is marginal, at best. Schimel’s loss was a massive rejection of Musk and his infinite war chest.

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!”