Liberal wins first major 2025 statewide battleground election in race turned into Trump-Musk referendum

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Candidate says Musk trying ‘to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court’

Susan Crawford, the liberal-leaning candidate in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, tells Fox News Digital that "Elon Musk has spent more that we have raised over the 10 months of this entire campaign."

PAWAUKEE, Wis. — The liberal-leaning candidate won a high-profile and historically expensive election in Wisconsin on Tuesday, protecting progressive majority control of the battleground state's Supreme Court, which is likely to rule on crucial issues like congressional redistricting, voting and labor rights, and abortion.

Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford defeated Brad Schimel, a former state attorney general who currently serves as a state circuit court judge in Waukesha County. Schimel, the conservative-aligned candidate in the race, was endorsed by President Donald Trump.

With a massive infusion of money from Democrat-aligned and Republican-aligned groups from outside Wisconsin, which turned the race into the most expensive judicial election in the nation's history, the contest partially transformed into a referendum on Trump's sweeping and controversial moves during the opening months of his second tour of duty in the White House.

Also front and center in the electoral showdown was someone who, along with Trump, was not on the ballot: billionaire Elon Musk, the president's top donor and White House adviser.

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Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford waves during her election night party after winning the election Tuesday, April 1, 2025, in Madison, Wis. (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf) (AP Photo/Kayla Wolf)

"I never could have imagined that I'd be taking on the richest man in the world, for justice in Wisconsin. And we won," Crawford said in her victory speech, in her home base of Madison, Wisconsin.

And pushing back against her critics, Crawford said "my promise to Wisconsin is clear. I will be a fair, impartial, and commonsense justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court."

Schimel conceded minutes after the Associated Press called the race, telling supporters in suburban Milwuakee that he had spoke to Crawford and that "the numbers aren't going to turn around and we're not going to pull this off."

"We'll get up to fight another day. But this wasn't our day," he added.

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Musk, the chief executive of Tesla and SpaceX, who has taken a buzz saw to the federal government workforce as he steers Trump's recently created Department of Government Efficiency, dished out roughly $20 million in the Wisconsin race through aligned groups in support of Schimel.

And Musk, in a controversial move, handed out $1 million checks at a rally in Green Bay on Sunday evening to two Wisconsin voters who had already cast ballots in the contest and had signed a petition to stop "activist judges."

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Wisconsin's Democrat state attorney general sued to block the payments, but the state Supreme Court refused to weigh in.

Elon Musk speaks during a town hall on Sunday, March 30, 2025 in Green Bay, Wisconsin. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)

Calling the election a "super big deal," Musk said it was critical to the Trump agenda.

"I think this will be important for the future of civilization," he said. "It’s that significant."

Musk wasn't the only mega-donor on the right playing in the Wisconsin showdown.

Shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein, who are among the biggest conservative contributors in the nation, also provided millions in support of Schimel and the Wisconsin GOP.

"If you told me six months ago this was what was going to happen, I would not have believed it. But yeah … some parts of this are way beyond my control anymore," Schimel said in a Fox News Digital interview during a bus tour stop Monday just outside Green Bay.

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Schimel, who launched his bid 16 months ago, added that "other people can treat this how they want. If they think they want to make it a referendum on the president or Elon Musk, so be it."

"This is a referendum on Wisconsin," he said. "Can we restore objectivity to the Wisconsin Supreme Court?"

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Schimel also leaned in to the endorsement from Trump. A TV ad running in the closing stretch of the race spotlighted that voting for Schimel would protect Trump's agenda. The candidate also wore a "Make America Great Again" hat at some campaign stops during the final weekend ahead of the election.

Judge Brad Schimel, the conservative-leaning candidate in Wisconsin's Supreme Court election, speaks to Republican activists in Bellevue, Wis., on March 31, 2025. (Fox News - Paul Steihhauser)

Schimel spotlighted his final blitz to reach out to voters.

"We are doing six to eight rallies every single day in cities across the state," he said. "People are turning out in huge numbers, and we’ve got other surrogates going out around the state where we’re not, doing the exact same thing. It’s absolutely about getting those voters out."

And Schimel also got a boost from the conservative powerhouse organization Americans for Prosperity. The group said its grassroots army has connected with nearly 600,000 voters in Wisconsin since last November's election.

President Donald Trump speaks to reporters before signing an executive order in the Oval Office on March 31, 2025. (Pool via AP)

Trump, who narrowly carried Wisconsin in both of his White House victories, said the state is important because its Supreme Court can settle disputes over election outcomes.

"Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin," the president said Monday at the White House. "Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so, therefore, the Supreme Court choice … it’s a big race." 

Schimel's camp and other conservatives repeatedly argued that a continuation of the liberal majority on Wisconsin's high court could lead to unfavorable congressional redistricting in the state, which could spell doom for two Republican lawmakers: Reps. Derrick Van Orden and Bryan Steil, chair of the House Administration Committee.

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Asked about the conservatives shining a spotlight on potential congressional redistricting, Crawford told reporters on Monday that "it's just not appropriate for me as a judge to express a view on that, especially on an issue that someday could come before the Wisconsin Supreme Court again. That's why I don't speak to the issue."

Judge Susan Crawford, the liberal-leaning candidate in Wisconsin's Supreme Court election, speaks at a rally in Madison, Wis., on March 31, 2025. (Fox News - Paul Steinhauser)

Tuesday's election was the first statewide contest held since Trump returned to the White House, and it was an opportunity for plenty of voters to vent against the president and his policies.

Crawford enjoyed a surge in fundraising, thanks in part to an energized base eager to resist Trump and Republicans.

"People are really motivated and want to make sure that we protect the Wisconsin Supreme Court," Crawford said in a Fox News Digital interview after a rally in Madison on the eve of the election.

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Crawford argued that voters "don’t want to see some outsider, some billionaire, come in and try to buy a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which is what Elon Musk is trying to do."

At her rally, Crawford said "this election is going to determine all of our fundamental rights and freedoms."

But Crawford also benefited from outside money, with roughly $2 million infused into the race by left-leaning financier George Soros, long a boogeyman of the right. Billionaire progressive Gov. JB Pritzker of neighboring Illinois has also spent big bucks in the race to support Crawford.

Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Brad Schimel and Susan Crawford participate in a debate in Milwaukee on March 12, 2025. (AP Photo/Morry Gash)

"I have gotten some generous contributions, and we’ve raised a lot of money in this race," she told Fox News. "But just to put that in perspective, in the last two months, Elon Musk has spent more than we have raised over the 10 months of this entire campaign, so his spending dwarfs that of any individual in any state supreme court ever and certainly one in Wisconsin."

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Crawford and Schimel were battling to succeed liberal-leaning justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who has served on Wisconsin's highest court for nearly three decades. Liberal-aligned justices held a 4-3 majority on the state Supreme Court heading into Tuesday's election.

The showdown drew some top surrogates to Wisconsin, including progressive champion Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont and MAGA star Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son.

The Democratic National Committee, in a statement following Crawford's victory, took aim at Musk.

"Make no mistake: Americans don’t want Elon Musk running their federal government and they don’t want him buying their local elections," the DNC argued.