By SCOTT BAUER, Associated Press
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Majority control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court will be decided Tuesday in a race that broke records for spending and has become a proxy battle for the nation’s political fights, pitting a candidate backed by President Donald Trump against a Democratic-aligned challenger.
Republicans including Trump and the world’s wealthiest person, Elon Musk, lined up behind Brad Schimel, a former state attorney general. Democrats including former President Barack Obama and billionaire megadonor George Soros backed Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who led legal fights to protect union power, abortion rights and to oppose voter ID.
The first major election in the country since November is seen as a litmus test of how voters feel about Trump’s first months back in office and the role played by Musk, whose Department of Government Efficiency has torn through federal agencies and laid off thousands of workers. Musk traveled to Wisconsin on Sunday to make a pitch for Schimel and personally hand out $1 million checks to two voters.
On Monday, Trump hinted as to why the outcome of the race was important. The court can decide election-related laws and settle disputes over future election outcomes.
“Wisconsin’s a big state politically, and the Supreme Court has a lot to do with elections in Wisconsin,” he told reporters in the Oval Office. “Winning Wisconsin’s a big deal, so therefore the Supreme Court choice … it’s a big race.”
Crawford embraced the backing of Planned Parenthood and other abortion rights advocates, running ads that highlighted Schimel’s opposition to the procedure. She also attacked Schimel for his ties to Trump and Musk, referring to “Elon Schimel” during a debate.
Schimel’s campaign tried to portray Crawford as weak on crime and a puppet of Democrats who, if elected, would push to redraw congressional district boundary lines to hurt Republicans and repeal a GOP-backed state law that took collective bargaining rights away from most public workers.
The winner of the court’s open seat will determine whether it remains under 4-3 liberal control, as it has been since 2023, or reverts to a conservative majority, as it was the 15 years beforehand.
The court will likely be deciding cases on abortion, public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries. Who controls it also could factor into how it might rule on any future voting challenge in the perennial presidential battleground state — raising the stakes for national Republicans and Democrats.
A few hours into Election Day on Tuesday, there were no major voting issues, according to state election officials. Ice storms prompted the relocation of some polling places in the northern part of the state, according to the Democratic chair of the Wisconsin Elections Commission, Ann Jacobs. Green Bay city officials said power was briefly lost and restored at three polling locations, and voting continued during the outage. In Dane County, home to the state capital, Madison, election officials reported voting operations were normal and polling locations busy.
Groups funded by Musk led all outside spending in the race, pouring more than $21 million into the contest. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, campaigned for Schimel in the closing weeks and said electing him was essential to protecting the Republican agenda. Trump, who endorsed Schimel 11 days before the election, posted on social media on Tuesday calling him an “America First Patriot” and urging Wisconsin residents to vote.
Schimel leaned into his support from Trump in the campaign’s waning days while insisting he would not be beholden to the president or Musk despite the massive spending on the race by groups that Musk supports.
Democrats have made that spending central to their messaging.
“Ultimately, I think it’s going to help Susan Crawford, because people do not want to see Elon Musk buying election after election after election,” Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said Monday. “If it works here, he’s going to do it all over the country.”
Crawford benefited from campaign stops by Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, the Democratic vice presidential nominee last year, and money from billionaire megadonors including Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker.
The contest is the most expensive court race on record in the U.S., with spending exceeding $90 million, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. That broke the previous record of $51 million, for the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023.
Wisconsin has a long history of razor-thin presidential votes, but in the last court race two years ago, the liberal candidate won by 11 points. Both sides said they expected a much narrower finish this year.
The winner will be elected to a 10-year term replacing retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley.
If Crawford wins, the court stands to remain under liberal control until at least 2028, the next time a liberal justice is on the ballot. If Schimel wins, the majority will once again be on the line next year.
Associated Press writers Ali Swenson in New York; Christina A. Cassidy in Atlanta; and Thomas Beaumont in Green Bay, Wisconsin, contributed to this report.