Liberal Wisconsin Judge Crawford Beats Musk-Backed Candidate (2)

Democrats won a key election Tuesday adding liberal Susan Crawford to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, keeping a majority on a bench tackling high-profile election, labor, and abortion cases.

Her victory over conservative state trial court Judge Brad Schimel—who was endorsed by President Donald Trump—was driven by more than $43 million in spending from liberal groups. They backed her to preserve liberal justices’ impact on pregnancy termination, business regulation, and election rules in a perpetual swing-state where groups have teed up challenges to the state’s labor union restrictions and a host of voting rules.

Crawford, a current state trial court judge, campaigned on her time representing unions, Planned Parenthood, and as a lead attorney for a Democratic governor. Still, she refused to commit to recusing from major cases over abortion, labor policy, and challenges brought by the Wisconsin Democratic Party—issues that helped drive the race to a record-setting $77 million in total ad spending according to AdImpact.

During her victory speech Tuesday, Crawford referenced Tesla founder Elon Musk, who recently handed out $1 million checks to registered voters in a campaign stunt that drew an unsuccessful legal challenge from Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul (D). Groups funded by the billionaire pushed an estimated $20 million into the race, which Musk described as critical to the Trump agenda and Republicans efforts to keep control of the House in the midterms.

“I’ve got to tell you, as a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined I’d be taking on the richest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin,” Crawford said. “And we won.”

Crawford’s victory was called a little over an hour after polls closed, with NBC, CNN, and the Associated Press all projecting the race. Schimel subsequently announced that he had called Crawford to concede, telling the audience at an election night rally that “you gotta accept the results.”

Democrats quickly seized on Crawford’s win Tuesday night, describing it as a rebuke of both the Trump agenda and Musk’s prominent role in conservative politics.

“Elon Musk was just rejected decisively by the voters of Wisconsin,” House Democratic leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-N.Y.) said during an appearance on MSNBC. “He tried to spend his unlimited resources to buy a state supreme court seat in Wisconsin and it failed spectacularly.”