Elon Musk is spending tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to dam free and truthful elections within the battleground state.
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Elon Musk throughout a city corridor on the KI Conference Heart in Inexperienced Bay, Wisconsin, on Sunday, March 30, 2025.
(Jamie kelter davis / bloomberg by way of Getty Photographs)
Elon Musk jetted into Wisconsin Sunday, donned a polyurethane cheesehead, and instructed voters that the destiny of the world rests on immediately’s state Supreme Court docket election.
Why? As a result of, the richest man on the earth claims, the race through which he’s spending tens of tens of millions of {dollars} to elect a partisan ally to Wisconsin’s highest courtroom isn’t actually in regards to the points which were extensively mentioned by candidates and voters—abortion rights, labor rights, voting rights. Relatively, he says, it’s all about management of Congress.
“What’s taking place on Tuesday is a vote for which celebration controls the US Home of Representatives—that’s the reason it’s so vital,” the billionaire says. “And whichever celebration controls the Home, to a big diploma, controls the nation which then steers the course of Western civilization. I really feel like that is a kind of issues that will not appear that it’s going to have an effect on your complete future of humanity, however I feel it’s going to.”
Even probably the most fervent Wisconsin boosters could be skeptical that this election might affect the destiny of the species so dramatically. However Musk argues that if progressives keep a 4–3 majority on Wisconsin’s excessive courtroom, they could handle the unconventional gerrymandering of the state’s congressional district maps, which presently benefits Republicans. In the event that they make the system fairer, one other Democrat, maybe two, might get elected. If extra Wisconsin Democrats get elected, which may make it simpler for the celebration to again the Home in 2026. And presto—civilization as we all know it’s over.
That’s quite a lot of “might” and “would possibly.” And 435 seats from 50 states will likely be crammed within the midterm elections. Not simply two in Wisconsin.
However Elon Musk has an energetic creativeness. So the billionaire has gone all in for former legal professional basic Brad Schimel, a right-wing stalwart who isn’t about to overturn pro-GOP maps, over Decide Susan Crawford, who’s supported by advocates for voting rights and truthful elections.
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“The Home majority is now razor-thin,” Musk declared at a Inexperienced Bay rally the place he gave away $1 million checks to supporters of his marketing campaign towards “activist” judges. “And if the (Wisconsin) Supreme Court docket is ready to redraw the districts, they’ll gerrymander the districts and deprive Wisconsin of two seats on the Republican facet. Then they’ll attempt to cease all the federal government reforms we’re getting performed, for you the American individuals.”
That’s a bizarre studying of Wisconsin politics by a South African–born billionaire who is aware of so little about elections within the state that he has instructed his social media followers to “Vote Republican” in a nonpartisan race the place there will likely be no point out of the Republicans Social gathering—nor, for that matter, the Democratic Social gathering—on the state’s April 1 poll.
It’s definitely inside the realm of chance {that a} lawsuit difficult the state’s present congressional maps might attain Wisconsin’s excessive courtroom. However, regardless of what Musk claims, the Wisconsinites who can be the plaintiffs on such a go well with wouldn’t be asking the courtroom to create gerrymandered maps. They might be asking the courtroom to assist them eliminate gerrymandered maps.
In different phrases, they might be asking the courtroom to assist them notice the total promise of consultant democracy.
Wisconsin is a intently divided state politically. 5 of the previous seven presidential elections have been determined by beneath 30,000 votes. The state has a conservative Republican senator (Ron Johnson) and a progressive Democratic senator (Tammy Baldwin). If there’s any sort of tilt in Wisconsin, it’s towards the Democrats, who’ve received 5 of the seven presidential contests since 2000, 4 of the final six common gubernatorial elections (together with the previous two contests), and presently maintain most statewide workplaces. But the eight-member Home delegation contains six Republicans and simply two Democrats. As US Consultant Mark Pocan (D-WI) says“Wisconsin is a purple state, nonetheless, our present congressional district maps don’t replicate that.”
Why would a state that frequently splits nearly evenly in voting for the presidency ship 75 % of its US Home seats to the celebration that, as a rule lately, has misplaced statewide contests? The reply is that Republican former Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies shamelessly gerrymandered the Home maps again in 2011 to favor GOP candidates. The district strains modified solely minimally after the 2020 Census, although a Democratic governor had defeated and changed Walker in 2018. That Democratic governor, Tony Evers, was compelled to work with a Republican-controlled legislature that was not open to a course of that might produce truthful maps.
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Had been the subsequent Supreme Court docket to rule towards Wisconsin’s gerrymandered congressional maps, authorized consultants and political observers argue that it might power the legislature to cooperate with the governor—as occurred when the courtroom thought-about gerrymandered legislative maps in 2023. After truthful strains have been adopted by the legislature and accepted by the governor, Democrats picked up 10 state Meeting seats and 4 state Senate seats in 2024. The Democrats didn’t win as a result of the brand new maps have been gerrymandered of their favor. Relatively, the Democrats recruited succesful candidates, ran on vital points, and received aggressive races.
Musk is true about one factor: Republicans have nearly no room for error relating to retaining the US Home. They presently management the chamber by a 218–213 margin. That’s such a detailed break up that New York Consultant Elise Stefanik’s nomination to function the subsequent US ambassador to the United Nations was just lately withdrawn to assist the GOP keep its benefit. (A pair of particular elections for Florida US Home seats, which is able to happen on Tuesday, are being intently watched as a result of Democratic wins within the traditionally Republican districts might additional weaken the grip of Home Speaker Mike Johnson and his partisan allies. In a kind of seats, which had been represented by Michael Waltz earlier than his now controversial appointment by President Donald Trump to function nationwide safety adviser, polls have recommended that Democrat Josh Weil is working a really robust race. It’s nonetheless an uphill climb for the Democrat. However a win for Weil, or perhaps a very shut end result, might recommend that Republicans are dealing with extra troubles than the prospect of redrawn district strains in Wisconsin.)
Regardless of what Musk says, there aren’t any ensures that redrawn Wisconsin Home district maps would create a congressional delegation that could be a exact reflection of the state’s partisan divide. New maps would possibly produce the proper 4–4 break up, a 5–3 break up favoring Republicans, or a 5–3 benefit for Democrats. Republicans would possibly even discover themselves with a 6–2 majority in a mega-wave yr. True democracy is unpredictable. However it’s fairly unlikely that truthful maps would give 75 % of the Wisconsin seats to the GOP each single time. As a substitute, redrawn maps might produce much more competitors in Wisconsin congressional races—for incumbents and challengers from each side of the political aisle.
On the very least, truthful maps would handle Wisconsin’s biased map, which Princeton’s Gerrymandering Challengean initiative that critiques district strains throughout the nation, gave an “F” on measures of partisan equity. An evaluation by the Gerrymandering Challenge discovered that the maps lock in a “vital Republican benefit.” So why wouldn’t Wisconsinites need to eradicate the bias and draw truthful maps that might permit Republicans and Democrats to compete based mostly on the standard of their candidates and their concepts—versus built-in geographic benefits?
Musk doesn’t see it that method. He desires to maintain the competitors rigged. So the billionaire has poured greater than $20 million into an effort to place a partisan Republican on Wisconsin’s excessive courtroom. If Schimel wins, the courtroom could have a 4–3 right-wing majority, and the present US Home district maps will nearly assuredly keep in place. That’s fantastic by Musk, who fears that truthful maps would possibly make the Congress extra more likely to replicate the need of the individuals—and, thus, upend his agenda.
In an effort to get his method, Musk is not only making an attempt to purchase an election. He’s successfully telling Wisconsinites that they need to go for a gerrymandered future relatively than consultant democracy.
John Nichols
John Nichols is a nationwide affairs correspondent for The Nation. He has written, cowritten, or edited over a dozen books on matters starting from histories of American socialism and the Democratic Social gathering to analyses of US and international media programs. His newest, cowritten with Senator Bernie Sanders, is the New York Occasions bestseller It is OK to Be Offended About Capitalism.
