The News
Democrats held onto their majority on Wisconsin’s state supreme court on Tuesday, while Republicans retained two deep red House seats in Florida by margins lower than previous elections.
The Wisconsin race had been seen by both parties as the most competitive, after a high-profile and expensive investment from Elon Musk. The loss was a setback for Republicans, who’d hoped that by starting early and nationalizing the race, they could excite enough 2024 Donald Trump voters to change the swing state’s electorate.
They came up short, with Judge Susan Crawford running ahead of Kamala Harris’s 2024 numbers across the state. Still, Trump and Republicans celebrated the Florida wins, while Democrats saw each result as a sign of strength.
“Dems just set $20 million on fire to lose two House seats by double digits,” wrote Will Kiley, communications director at the National Republican Congressional Committee, after the state’s 1st District was called for Rep.-elect Jimmy Patronis and the 6th District was called for Rep.-elect Randy Fine.
But heavy Democratic fundraising in both races, especially the $14 million raised by Josh Weil in the Daytona Beach-based 6th District, convinced Republicans to spend money in what had been a very safe seat. Trump carried the 6th District by 30 points last year, and the Panhandle-based 1st District by 37 points. His party won on Tuesday by 14 and 15 points, respectively.
And the GOP did worse in Wisconsin, where hopes that they could turn out a critical mass of 2024 Trump voters ran up against higher Democratic enthusiasm. Wisconsin Democrats branded the final stretch of the race “the People v. Musk,” highlighting the DOGE figurehead’s spending and touting polls that found him to be toxically unpopular with their base. (Their first anti-Musk rally was held in Sauk County, which Trump won last year but Crawford won on Tuesday.)
“What Dems learned? The power of the people to take on billionaires — and win,” Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin told Semafor. “What Trump and Elon learned? That they better brace themselves for November 2026.”
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David’s view
Republicans tried something new in Wisconsin this year, and with a lot of help. They backed Brad Schimel for the court seat, a former attorney general who’d won statewide and wasn’t afraid to tie himself to Trump. They worked with Turning Point Action, which poured resources into a ballot chase, and with Musk’s PACs, which told Republican voters that a vote for Schimel was a vote to support Trump and DOGE.
“We are going to win in Wisconsin and send a message to the radical left,” Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy, a former congressman from the state’s northwest, said at Sunday’s rally with Musk in Green Bay. “Don’t mess with Trump. Don’t mess with DOGE. Don’t mess with Elon, and don’t mess with Wisconsin.”
Here’s the problem with calling an election a referendum on your agenda: You could lose. Democrats will now control the state’s high court for years, and have fresh evidence that campaigning against Musk and DOGE works, after 71 days of ineffectively whacking at them in DC.
When I reported from Wisconsin last month, Republicans said that Schimel could win if he found 200,000 Trump voters who usually skipped these races. They amended the usual playbook for these races — judicial candidates promising to rule fairly and put crooks in jail — with MAGA messaging that warned of Democrats halting the Trump agenda and redrawing maps to erase two Republican House seats.
That did pull out more conservative voters than their recent campaigns. But Democrats found more votes for Crawford, drawing from a base — more highly educated, more attuned to traditional news and political developments — that is wired to vote in every election. And they effectively portrayed Musk, romping across a Green Bay stage in a foam cheesehead, as an interloper trying to buy an election.
“Growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never imagined that I would take on the richest man in the world,” Crawford said in her victory speech on Tuesday.
The party didn’t expect to win in Florida. Indeed, a few weeks ago, I was hearing frustration from Democrats that Weil was tapping so many small donors for his race, when the resources might be better spent in more competitive elections. But Democrats have now shown that at least some of their voters are more motivated than Republicans, despite polling that has found record-low support for the party.
“Anyone who counted Democrats out was dead wrong,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said after Crawford declared victory.
Room for Disagreement
Republicans did win those Florida races, and they easily passed an amendment that locked Wisconsin’s existing voter ID policy into the state constitution, blocking any possibility that the liberal court would limit or strike down the 10-year-old policy. As Crawford took the podium in Madison, she was in the only part of the state that opposed that amendment.
Notable
- In the New York Times, longtime Wisconsin beat reporter Reid J. Epstein breaks down the Democratic win: “Judge Crawford’s victory puts the party on its front foot for the first time since last November.”
- For The Associated Press, a team of reporters got Fine’s take on his victory in Florida. “It’s hard to say that’s an underperformance,” Fine said, standing below a “Trump is still my president” sign.