After a long, expensive, and closely watched race, Wisconsin went to the polls on Tuesday, and voted in a new state Supreme Court justice.
Susan Crawford, a liberal county judge backed by Democrats across the US, defeated the conservative candidate, Brad Schimel, who was backed by the national GOP.
In a conversation for Vox’s daily newsletter Today, Explained, I asked politics reporter Christian Paz to break down the big race and its impact. Here’s what he had to say. (Our conversation was edited for length and clarity.)
So, tell me about what happened in Wisconsin.
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court has a seat that’s opening up because one of the Democrats is retiring. (The state’s Supreme Court is technically nonpartisan, but there are “liberals” whom Democrats support and “conservatives” whom Republicans support.)
Right now, Democrats currently have a one-seat ideological majority on the court, and Tuesday’s race was about which party would have the majority for the foreseeable future. Tuesday night, it quickly became clear that would be the Democrats.
For people living in Wisconsin, the chance to decide the ideological makeup of the court was a big deal. Nationally, though, the race became important for a few other reasons.
One, this was the first major statewide race happening in a swing state, or really any state, since Trump’s inauguration. Democrats did poorly in swing states in the 2024 election, so this race is seen as a test of whether Democrats can still win races.
Two, we’re about 10 weeks into Trump’s second term, so this race was viewed as a referendum on the Trump administration so far.
Three, this race was also a referendum on Elon Musk’s power and influence. He managed to make the race in Wisconsin about himself, by spending tens of millions of dollars in support of Schimel, and by testing the limits of campaign finance rules, finding as many ways as possible to offer people money to pay attention to the race, including by giving away a million dollars to voters. He’s poured millions of dollars into canvassing, and even went to Wisconsin to hold a rally on Schimel’s behalf.
Finally, this election gives us a new data point to try to answer a question political scientists have wrestled with for a long time: Are there two electorates? Conventional wisdom suggests the answer to that question is yes, that there are lower propensity voters who only turn out in presidential elections, and then there are higher propensity voters who are very tuned into politics who turn out in every election, be it presidential, midterm, or special.
However, political polarization and the level of loyalty Donald Trump inspires has some wondering whether that still holds. Tuesday’s result helps suggest that it might.
This is an off-cycle race, and because of that, some political commentators saw this contest as favoring Democrats a little.
Last year, Kamala Harris performed particularly well with voters who said that they followed news closely, the classic high propensity voter. Again, high propensity voters tend to reliably vote in non-presidential elections, and the thinking was, those same Harris voters might help Crawford. And it seems like they did.
There are other races coming up this year, and midterms next year. Does Wisconsin tell us anything about those?
We shouldn’t put too much stock in one race.
That said, you could argue Susan Crawford’s win makes some kind of blue wave next year appear a little more likely.
There are a few factors that made this a somewhat unique case for Democrats, which makes it a little difficult to draw broad conclusions.
As I mentioned, the fact that this was an off-cycle election probably helped Democrats, and there’s another unique factor that may have helped too. Elon Musk wasn’t the only person pouring in money; wealthy Democrats did too, as did grassroots donors. That’s in part because this was the only big race going on; if you’re a liberal donor or a fundraiser, where else can you send your money? That won’t be the case in the midterms next year.
That said, Crawford’s win does buttress conventional wisdom. Political science would tell us that you can’t be an unpopular president with an unpopular agenda, leading an unpopular party, and flip a seat in a statewide race like this. And Republicans did fail to flip this seat.
That failure could have some implication for next year’s midterms. Those elections tend to favor the party out of power, with voters trying to use them to put a check on the incumbent administration. If the other races coming up this year — like Virginia’s gubernatorial race — shake out like the race in Wisconsin, Democrats may decide their best bet is to just try to ride an anti-Trump, anti-Musk, anti-status quo anger to midterm victory.
The result is also a huge warning sign about the power of Elon Musk. Last year, a lot of people ridiculed his canvassing efforts on behalf of the Republicans, and his funding of external groups outside of the political party system to turn out voters. Then Trump won, and his strategy suddenly looked good.
Wisconsin suggests there are limits to the idea that the world’s richest man can pour money into politics to influence minds, making voting essentially a financial transaction, and it will pay off.
