Democrats stopped being dupes for Trump and Musk. Wisconsin made sure of that. | Opinion
Elon Musk really tried to buy the outcome of the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, but voters soundly rejected him. Now Democrats want him to stick around.
Elon Musk learned a lesson this week that only Wisconsin can teach: If you attempt to culturally appropriate their "cheeseheads" for political gain, the Badger State will mercilessly embarrass you for it.
Musk took some time off recently from heedlessly dismembering the federal government as co-president with Donald Trump to campaign for Republican Brad Schimel, who on Tuesday lost a Wisconsin Supreme Court election to Democrat-backed Susan Crawford.
Musk deployed his usual tactics – a flood of funding from his super PACs, offering would-be voters payments to draw attention to the race, handing out $1 million checks to voters, and displaying his signature cringe style of engaging in real life with other human beings.
Musk wore a cheesehead, a nod to the state's dairy dominance, on stage Sunday while campaigning for Schimel. "What do you think of my hat?" Musk asked in a state that was about to show him exactly what it thought.
Ben Wikler, chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party, donned his own cheesehead during a conference call with journalists Wednesday to mock Musk and tout what he clearly wanted to see as a turnaround moment for his party.
"Elon Musk thought that he could put on a cheesehead, that he could bribe Wisconsin voters, that he could buy our courts," Wikler said, casting Tuesday's race as a referendum on Musk and Trump. "This is a blinking red light for the Republican Party and a roar of energy for Democrats in Wisconsin and across the country."
Is the Tuesday election a warning sign to Republicans?
April Fools' Day wasn't all bad news for Republicans. Sort of. The party won two special elections for U.S. House seats in Florida that were vacant due to Republican resignations.
That gives Republicans in the House a little breathing room with their very narrow majority. But those races serve as a warning too, since the Republicans won Tuesday by much smaller margins than Trump won in those districts just five months ago.
Nikki Fried, chair of the Florida Democratic Party, called that proof that "voters are already rejecting Trump's extreme and unpopular agenda."
Speaking on the conference call with Wikler, Fried said Democrats overperforming in "ruby red" Republican districts sends a signal about the 2026 midterm elections in more competitive districts.
"We've got a lot of races here in Florida that I know they're starting to sweat a little bit today," Fried said.
Wikler expects the same political perspiration in Wisconsin and other states.
"There are a lot of Republican members of Congress who might wonder how they would fare if the political needle moves 15 points nationwide," he added.
Democrats want Elon Musk to stay on Republican stages
The Democrats successfully remade Tuesday's elections as referendums on the damage Trump and Musk have done to our government in 10 long weeks. The chair of the Wisconsin Democratic Party nodded to the "taint" of an administration throttling Social Security staffing, firing veterans and upending union contracts.
"For Elon Musk to tie himself to Republican candidates is the political kiss of death," Wikler said.
Ken Martin, the new chair of the Democratic National Committee, hosted the media call. Like Wikler, Martin hopes the Republicans keep trotting out Musk as the face of their party.
"He's one of the most unpopular people in the country right now," Martin said of Musk. "So the more Elon Musk wants to get out there, I say, go for it."
Think they're overhyping Musk? The president's own hatchet man told voters in the run-up to Tuesday's election that the race could impact "the entire destiny of humanity" and "might determine the fate of America."
Musk was less talkative about a lawsuit that his car company Tesla filed against Wisconsin in January in a fight over the state's auto franchise system, which ultimately could be heard by Crawford and the other Wisconsin Supreme Court justices.
Who needs to scrutinize Musk's actual motives when "the entire destiny of humanity" is on the line? Everyone. That's the answer. Everyone.
Republican judge complains about Democrats spending money on the election
Trump posted about the race on social media, attacking Crawford, who beat Schimel by 10 percentage points. His standard diatribes did nothing to bolster Schimel in a state Trump narrowly won in November.
Musk moped about the loss early Wednesday, posting this pitiful display: "The long con of the left is corruption of the judiciary."
The website WisPolitics tracked $107 million in spending among the two Supreme Court campaigns, political parties and super PACs. Musk and his political action committees kicked in more than $24 million of that spending. And that doesn't include the $3 million in checks Musk handed out or the smaller payments of $100 to other voters.
And still, he felt compelled to cite "corruption" as the problem here. And he wasn't alone.
Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative Republican, lamented Schimel's loss at her election night party, complaining to a local television reporter about "a ridiculous amount of money" spent on the election while accusing the Democratic Party of "buying another justice" in the state.
Bradley, who is up for reelection next year, didn't mention any qualms about having the richest man in the world providing about a fourth of that "ridiculous amount of money."
What if Musk had successfully purchased the election?
And there's the Trump code to all of this. If Musk's money had pushed Schimel to a victory, he and Trump and Bradley and other Republicans would have hailed that as a triumph of free speech and political ideology.
But they lost. So even as Schimel conceded and urged his angry supporters to accept the results, his Republican allies like Musk and Bradley couldn't resist the urge to call the loss somehow "corrupt" because they didn't get what they wanted.
We're still a long way off from the 2026 midterm elections. If you hear Republicans like Musk and Trump crying more about corruption between now and then, you'll know the Democratic Party is creeping back from a near-death experience and scaring the bejesus out of the MAGA movement.
Follow Paste BN columnist Chris Brennan on X, formerly known as Twitter: @ByChrisBrennan