Could Elon Musk Sway the Wisconsin Supreme Court Election?
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From the opinion pages of The Wall Street Journal, this is Potomac Watch. The most important election of 2025 is probably one you've never heard of. It's for the soon-to-be-open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court that will determine whether there's a liberal or conservative majority on that court. We'll tell you why this matters, not just for Wisconsin.

but also for national politics. Plus, Democrats in Washington and around the country, for that matter, pile on Chuck Schumer after he and nine other Democrats vote to prevent a filibuster of a House Republican budget bill and fund the government through September 30th. Welcome. I'm Paul Gigo here on Potomac Watch, our daily podcast of the Wall Street Journal opinion pages. I'm here with my colleagues Kim Strassel and Colin Lundgren.

Levy. So, Colin, you're perched in Chicago and following the race for the Supreme Court in Wisconsin as you have followed other Supreme Court races there. This one is between Democrat Susan Crawford and Republican Brad Schimel. Both are judges.

So why does this matter? What's interesting about this race, I think, is that it's something of a bellwether. I mean, it's a contrast that's drawing intense Democratic and Republican attention for the first time since President Trump's election. And it's also a race that can have real political effects both inside Wisconsin and on a national level. I think...

I think one way that we're already seeing that very clearly is in the amount of money that's pouring into the state. There's no question that we're in record-breaking territory for a state court race. The last Wisconsin Supreme Court race, which elected Justice Janet Protasewicz, was already a huge spender. And this time we're already over that line. Wiz Politics, which is a local outlet, put the projected spending at $59 million through April 1st.

So, that's already a record and it doesn't even capture a certain amount of the spending that doesn't register at these election tracking outlets. You know, if you think about digital advocacy, any of those things that aren't radio, television, and other express advocacy are just huge. $59 million for a state Supreme Court race is unheard of. Now, the election is April 1st.

So it's only a couple of weeks away. What's at stake here? That's what I want to know. The reason this is important from a national level is that it could put U.S. congressional seats in play, right? And that's what's bringing in these pots of out-of-state money. And essentially, the issue is that the court is currently, as you said, balanced four to three, a progressive majority. And the liberal justice, Ann Walsh Bradley, is retiring. And so it's up for grabs again. So what could happen now is that the court could redraw those maps

so that the current Wisconsin congressional delegation, which is balanced eight to four Republicans, could then have the maps redrawn so that it could go back to either an even split, you know, sort of a four-four for Democrats and Republicans, or even maybe shift toward the Democrats. So when you're talking about two congressional seats, the stakes are extremely high. That's the margin in Congress. But so wait a minute, is it six-two?

Right? Yeah, 6-2. Okay. I think you said 8-2. Sorry, including the senators. And the evidence that this might happen, the change in legislative congressional maps, is that when Janet Proto-Sawitz was elected and turned the majority in the liberal direction for three years,

The state legislative maps were then overturned by the court. And Protasewicz had weighed in on that. And almost immediately after the majority was turned, there was a lawsuit filed to try to tee up the change in the state legislative maps. She obliged Protasewicz.

with an opinion. And there are all kinds of other things that are teed up here. There's the school voucher plan that has been very successful in Wisconsin, but that could be up for grabs. It's already been once endorsed by the Supreme Court. But even more important, Act 10, which is the law that passed...

in 2011 when Scott Walker was governor that restricted collective bargaining for public workers. Kim, tell us about that. Yeah, there's so much up for grab here, Paul. And just to go back to that 2023 race when Janet Protasewicz

There was a lot of money, as Colin noted, that went into that race. And also, she was just overt about what she was going to do. It really was a flip from what you normally see in these races, which are technically nonpartisan. But she threw out all the roadblocks. She said that those maps were rigged.

She goes, I won't tell you how I'd vote on any individual case, but let me just let you know that those maps are rigged and they would be overturned. So she was signaling to everyone exactly what she was going to do. And we're seeing some of that now being teed up in this race. Act 10 was this incredibly important piece of legislation that Scott Walker managed to get through after an enormous fight. Some people might remember people flooding into the Wisconsin Capitol. There were

protests over it. But what it did is essentially barred the ability of public sector unions to collectively bargain. And we have seen a number of other states follow in the wake of that. It has become a new reform priority for conservatives across the country. Wisconsin was one of the first. It has saved the state a great deal of money, but it is still detested by unions and the

That Crawford, who is the liberal county judge here running for the seat, she used to be a union attorney and an attorney for Planned Parenthood. She has spoken fairly openly about what she would do if she were put onto the court.

So, those are just a few of the things that are up. And as you mentioned, the other thing coming up is there's a number of abortion laws that are going to be heard in front of the court. There's still this question of an 1849 abortion law that's on the books in Wisconsin, but also the question of whether or not the Wisconsin state constitution protects the right to an abortion. And those are cases that are also in the mix.

We are going to take a break. And when we come back, we'll talk about the outside donors who have become the biggest issue in the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin when we come back.

Thanks to IP.

Learn more at phrma.org/ipworkswonders.

Welcome back. I'm Paul Gigo here with Potomac Watch with Colin Levy and Kim Strassel. Colin, let's listen to excerpts from the debate between the two judges last week. And you get a flavor for the fact that they're debating not just what their positions are likely to be on court cases, which, of course, they can't say in advance, but they're debating who's backing whom. Let's listen first to Crawford and then to Schimel.

Let me ask you about George Soros. Do you embrace his endorsement and his spending on your company?

I have had generous contributions that have gone to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. The Democratic Party of Wisconsin has endorsed me and supported my candidacy. But let's talk about Elon Musk. He has now spent over $10 million on my opponent's race. He has basically taken over Brad Schimel's campaign. He's got paid canvassers who are knocking on doors, handing out flyers that say, support

the Trump agenda, put Brad Schimel on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. I have no control over whatever any outside group does. I will enforce the law. I will apply the law the way the legislature has written it.

If President Trump or anyone defies Wisconsin law and I end up with a case in front of me, I'll hold them accountable as I would anybody. In my courtroom, I have individuals come in that sometimes are supporters of me, sometimes are people that don't like me. It doesn't make any difference. I've had political cases in my civil courtroom. It makes no difference who's in front of me.

Colin, you guys all make fun of me for pronouncing the word Wisconsin with that drawn out sconce. And so just have you know that this is where I grew up. But what do you make of this? Crawford seems to be running her entire campaign, not against Schimel as much as against Elon Musk and Donald Trump. What's the strategy there?

It's fascinating. I mean, the strategy, Paul, is that the left really hates Elon Musk right now. So clearly, Judge Crawford thinks that she could score political points by focusing on him calling Brad Schimel, Elon Schimel. I mean, it's comedy, right? For my point of view, I think there's something of a risky strategy here because, yes, the left hates Elon Musk.

But also you have a lot of Trump voters in Wisconsin that are really only motivated by Donald Trump. So the more you get the national characters involved in the race, I think Republicans would like nothing more than to have those voters turn out in force. Just a second, Colin. The thing is, though, that this is an April election, right? And it's for the Supreme Court, which is highly publicized in Wisconsin, but it's not a presidential race.

It's not a congressional race. It's not a governor's race. So these tend to be low turnout affairs in April. You have school board elections. So aren't they trying to drive progressive left-wing turnout in Dane County and Milwaukee County to figuring that all those rural voters are like Trump?

They don't even know there's a race. Of course. Of course, that's exactly what they're doing. They're trying to drive the low propensity voters among progressives. What I'm saying, though, too, is there are also low propensity Republican voters out there. And most of those low propensity Republican voters are also motivated by Donald Trump. So I think it's a pretty risky strategy that Judge Crawford is pushing here, you know, trying to turn the race right into the main camp for those voters as well. What is Schimel running on, Colin? So it's

This is one thing that's kind of interesting, Paul, and that's not getting a lot of attention outside of Wisconsin. A lot of this is really being run on crime. You know, Wisconsin voters actually say that crime and public safety is one of their main concerns. So in addition to, you know, as you and Kim were discussing, you know, Act 10,

and voter ID and these other issues that voters are very tuned into. There's also the concern that public safety will be changed by the Wisconsin court. And so a lot of the campaign ads that you're actually seeing in Wisconsin are focusing on Judge Crawford's record as a judge being very soft on crime, letting off some convicted criminals, actually, honestly, whose issues were so horrific that I'm not really comfortable talking about them here.

So, you know, there are these local issues that are going to motivate voters as well. And, Kim, this looks like it's going to be a close-run thing. The polls, such as they have been, have the race tied at 47 percent and only 5 percent of the voters undecided. That, I think, reflects just how closely divided the state of Wisconsin is on left-right grounds, as we've seen recently.

in almost all statewide elections in the state the last decade. This is going to be a test for both sides because both sides are essentially engaging in another trial run to set the mold for other elections this year. Look, later this year, we're going to have elections in Virginia and New Jersey. Both sides are trying to figure out what might resonate with voters in the aftermath of November and now that Donald Trump is in office.

So as you were just noting, Democrats are trying to nationalize this, make it about Elon Musk and federal government cutting. But the right, for their part, and Elon Musk, I think this is to Colin's point, they're more than happy with that. They're out there running ads saying, yes, let's make this all about how much you like Donald Trump. Come on out, low propensity voters. So they are doing a second run at something that was very successful to them in November, which was this Musk campaign.

Charlie Kirk effort to go out and identify people that don't vote in every election and get them to the polls. A tougher thing to do in a special election. And I think that's the risk for both sides. We will see how it turns out. But I think this could be very close. I personally don't necessarily think that those top line issues will necessarily say a lot because there's a lot of local issues going into this. But expect both sides, whoever wins to crow that they're winning on the national front.

So when you say the big issues, you mean the nationalization? The national questions. I'm not really sure in the end that this race for this court, which, by the way, has a lot of history and a lot of drama in and of itself. And as we just mentioned, a lot of local issues. I don't think that the outcome of this race is necessarily going to be a referendum on how Donald Trump is doing in office so far.

But you can expect both sides to suggest that is the outcome, whichever wins. But that's the bet that Democrats seem to be making on this race, which is an interesting political bet. Unfortunate for Wisconsin voters, I guess. All right. We're going to watch this as the April 1st date approaches. We're going to take another break. When we come back, we'll talk about the intra-democratic feud over Chuck Schumer's decision to help pass the Republican budget when we come back.

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Welcome back. I'm Paul G. Goh here on our Opinion Podcast daily podcast, the Potomac Watch with Kim Strassel and Colin Levy. Let's turn to our other subject today, and that's the Democratic pile-on against Chuck Schumer, the Democratic Senate leader, for voting with nine other Democrats, kind of rounding them up, Senate Democrats, to give enough votes to break a filibuster that some Democrats wanted to use to stop the House budget that is now keeping the government open through September 30th.

Because Republicans stayed united, passed the House, they didn't have to rely on Democratic votes to help in the House, a rare miracle in my recent experience. And I put the pressure on Schumer to have to decide, "Well, if we filibuster this, then our fingerprints are all over shutting down the government."

If we don't, and I vote to get this through, which he did, then I get the wrath of the political left. Boy, that wrath has been something to behold. We wrote this morning, it was Chuck Schumer's finest hour because he didn't fall for the

tactic that the Democratic left wanted, which is to basically say, yes, we're shutting down the government because we want to shut down Elon Musk. Never mind that they would take the political hit for that. Kim, what do you make of this intra-democratic feud? Yeah. Chuck Schumer was looking out for the best interests of their party. The unfortunate thing is they do not recognize that. And that sums up everything that is a

problem for the Democratic Party right now. He did not have a single card to hold the minute the House Republicans passed that legislation.

And as you note, had they proceeded to shut down, it would have not just stopped all over their own message. Here they have been out for the past six weeks saying the worst thing that has ever happened is Donald Trump cutting all these federal workers jobs. He's being so mean to federal workers. And then they were going to take responsibility for putting them all on furlough and putting them out of work. It also would have been an opportunity for Donald Trump to change his subject. Right. Right.

There is some incoming heat on Elon Musk right now and him, and he'd have loved nothing more than to have made this all about Democrats, and they would have owned this. So, Chuck Schumer, if I was going to fault him for one thing, it was actually allowing Democrats for three days to suggest they might go down the shutdown path.

Only in the end to shut that down because it raised progressive hopes that they were going to get this fight, only to be even more disappointed when it didn't happen. But in the end, his final decision was the best and really the only viable one for his party. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the progressive firebrand from Queens, attacked the

Schumer, Collins, saying that this was a betrayal. Of course, she's potentially a primary candidate against Chuck Schumer in 2028, though that's a long way off. But a lot of other groups have said really attacking Schumer. There's a group called Indivisible, an activist group, which said he should resign. I guess that was a fundraising effort by Indivisible. But Chris Murphy, the Connecticut senator, saying he won't challenge Schumer for leader, but he wants Schumer to change tactics. The problem they have is

They can use the filibuster, Democrats can, to stop certain kinds of legislation, but you can't tell your base that you have more power than you really do. Because when you do, when you persuade them that somehow you can stop Elon Musk with this stuff, you can stop Donald Trump other than through court suits.

The only thing you do is you gin up your base and they turn out and they hate you for it. If you can't do what you've kind of intimated that you can do, as Kim suggested Schumer was initially talking about. So this all reminds me of what happened to Mitch McConnell when he was a Republican leader when Democrats were president and...

McConnell, of course, is a consummate realist politically. And yet a lot of Republicans wanted to say, Mitch, you got to stop Barack Obama. You got to get him to sign the repeal of Obamacare and we'll shut down the government until, well, I guess until Obama does that. And of course, he was never going to do it.

No, I mean, I think that's right. Look, there's a time for principle. There's a time for pragmatism. You know, I think the fact that these long knives have come out for Chuck Schumer, Indivisible, coming out, you know, and bragging about exactly the percentage of the base, you know, 82% who would get Schumer out of there and talking about AOC as well. I think that the amount of

It's sort of the level of howling that's happening on the left right now isn't necessarily going to be the most productive way to play this out. And remembering Mitch McConnell and the way that he knew when to make those decisions, when to unify his base. And now, as he is in a different phase in his political career, just sort of becoming a voice for those Republicans that still remember Republicans.

principles, I think maybe Democrats could learn a little something from that. Of course, McConnell approval rating among Republicans was really reduced by all the attacks, and he gets the blame for things. And not every time something didn't turn out well, the folks on the right attacked McConnell. Kim, do you think that Schumer is now going to become this foil for the frustrations of the Democratic left? And could there be a challenge to his leadership? It depends on if he rolls over. I mean, look...

Look, he was doing what a party leader is supposed to do, which is looking out for the best interest long run of his party, much as Mitch McConnell did. Now, the thing about Chuck Schumer is if you look at him, this is rare for him. He often will just go along to get along with the progressive left.

because he has been running from the threat of AOC. They're nipping at his heels and the notion that she might get into a race in primarium or somebody else. Before this moment, when he stood on the floor of the Senate and said, I'm going to vote, a shutdown would be silly. We last saw him standing outside of the Treasury Department cheering, saying we will win because he likes to have that progressive approval. So he was broadcasting previously that there was a fight

to be had with Elon Musk, and it was one that Democrats could be victorious on. I think in the long term, he would be better off helping his party, but I think he's stuck either way. I think if he is unlikely to stand up and keep doing this because it's just not in his nature,

On the other hand, I don't think that anything he does is going to be viewed as militant enough for today's ascendant progressive wing of the party. And he probably will be challenged at some point. Well, we shall see. The fundamental reality for Democrats is that they just don't have the votes. So if Republicans stand together, they'll be able to pass a reconciliation budget bill for fiscal 2026. And that will cause even more consternation on Democrats.

the left, but Schumer can't do anything about that because that can pass the Senate with only 51 votes according to Senate rules. You can get a lot of legislation done that way. All right. Thank you, Kim. Thank you, Colin. And thank you all for listening. I just want to alert our listeners that you can now also be our viewers by catching the podcast on YouTube in video. You can catch that and we sure hope you do watch and listen. Thank you all for joining us on Potomac Watch and we're here every day.