On paper, the election in Wisconsin on Tuesday is about who should control the state’s highest court. In reality, it has become a referendum on Elon Musk, his agenda in Washington and his willingness to flood American politics with his money.Reid J. Epstein, who has been covering this campaign for The Times, explains why it has become the local election that everyone is watching.Guest: Reid J. Epstein, a New York Times reporter covering politics.Background reading: Tuesday’s election will reveal what’s more powerful: Elon Musk’s millions, or liberal anger at him.Mr. Musk and Tesla have a legal bone to pick with Wisconsin.The billionaire has returned to his Trump playbook in the race.For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday. Photo: Jim Vondruska for The New York Times Unlock full access to New York Times podcasts and explore everything from politics to pop culture. Subscribe today at nytimes.com/podcasts or on Apple Podcasts and Spotify.
Chapter 1: Why is the Wisconsin Supreme Court election significant?
From The New York Times, I'm Michael Barbaro. This is The Daily. On paper, today's election in Wisconsin is about whether Democrats or Republicans should control the state's highest court. In reality, it's become a referendum on Elon Musk, his agenda in Washington, and his willingness to flood American politics with his money.
Today, my colleague Reed Epstein on the local election that everyone is watching. It's Tuesday, April 1st.
You ready, Reed? I'm ready. My phone is on do not disturb. Get that last sip of Svendritin. I have a backup here, too. We have more water.
Perfect. Reid, as we know, after every presidential election, the political cognoscenti... Is that how you say that word? I think that's how you say it. I think that's an only in journalism word. Okay.
The political class, the political world turns its attention to the first batch of special elections, these off-season races that happen when somebody retires or gets chosen to be in the president's cabinet and they leave a vacant seat. And we study these, as you know, for signs of how the voting public feels about the new president, direction of the country, and both parties.
And it's a temperature-taking exercise. And we've had a few of them, even though this presidency is just a couple months old.
Yeah, this really began about a week after Trump was inaugurated in a state Senate election in eastern Iowa, in a rural Republican part of the state, where the Republican who had held the seat before had won by 22 points the last time the seat was up. Safe Republican seat. A safe Republican seat.
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Chapter 2: How have past special elections influenced political predictions?
And the Democrat prevailed by four points in an election that hadn't gotten a lot of attention or investment from the parties. Wow. But it was a sign that there was some grassroots organic enthusiasm for Democratic candidates in this new Trump era. And fast forward to a week ago, there was another special election campaign.
In Pennsylvania, for another state Senate seat, this one got a little bit more attention, but not really any money. And it was a district that Donald Trump had won by 15 points last fall. And again, the Democratic candidate won. In a district where Trump won by 15 points. By 15 points, yeah.
And the people in the party took it as evidence that there was some real anger bubbling up about what Trump was doing in the White House that was reaching all the way down to some of these local races.
Right, because what you're describing are not swing seats, which could go either way, but what sound like pretty reliable Republican red seats. So Democrats flipping them, even in the context of a special election, which, as you said, is somewhat unusual by definition, seems meaningful.
Right. And that brings us to Florida, where we have a pair of special congressional elections today to fill seats held by former congressmen who were Trump loyalists in districts where Republicans win by 25 or 30 or 35 points typically. So these are not districts that even in a Democratic wave that the party would expect to be terribly competitive.
But their candidates have outraised the Republican favorites in these races. Wow. And put a bit of a spook into House Republicans. We saw last week Elise Stefanik, the nominee to be the ambassador to the United Nations, have her nomination be pulled back in part because Republicans couldn't afford to have another seat vacant in case one of these special elections goes haywire.
So even more evidence of what a galvanizing moment this is for Democrats, so much so that the president has asked a member of Congress who's supposed to be in his cabinet to stay in Congress for fear that one or both of these Republican-held House seats in Florida might, might fall to Democrats.
Right. There is a lot of concern on the Republican side about these House seats. I should say the concern on the Republican side is not shared by optimism on the Democratic side. They do not think that they're going to win these seats, but they are enjoying watching Republicans fret about them.
And then there's the race that I've been focused on, which isn't one of these Florida elections, but the contest for the deciding seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
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Chapter 3: Who are the candidates in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
And we saw something in Wisconsin that we've never seen in any race anywhere else in the country where a single donor who also happens to be the chief policy director of the White House with his own checkbook. basically built an entire campaign for one of the president's allies. And he, so far, has spent more than $20 million. Wow.
And he's also, you know, the largest single donor to the Wisconsin Republican Party, which can then give money directly to Schimel's campaign. He has given more than 25% of all of the money spent on this race from both sides combined. Hmm.
And that's made this election in Wisconsin the first real test of whether Elon Musk and the millions of dollars he can direct toward an election can snuff out Democratic anger that, for a lot of the country, is directed at him.
Right.
Or whether the Democratic enthusiasm to push back against what's happening in Washington can overcome Elon Musk, Donald Trump, and all of the money that Musk has directed toward them.
We'll be right back.
So, Reid, why did Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, choose this race of all races to pour his money into right now? Well, Michael, there's a lot of theories.
First, it's the biggest, most important race on the calendar until November. So if he's going to get involved in something, it would be this. He has a non-trivial personal financial stake in the outcome. Tesla, the car company that he is the chief executive of.
is suing the state of Wisconsin over a state law that forbids Tesla from opening its own car dealerships in the state without going through a franchisee. A lot of states have laws like this. Tesla has sued or maneuvered around them in many states where it operates. But Wisconsin had said no. And in January, Tesla filed a lawsuit.
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Chapter 4: What role is Elon Musk playing in the Wisconsin election?
And saying that during her time as a judge.
A seven-year-old girl sexually assaulted. The attacker faced 100 years. Crawford let him off with only four.
I don't regret that sentence.
That she was too lenient in sentencing violent criminals.
While his victim lives with the scars forever. She even let the predator live across the street from an elementary school.
And again, he's also given money directly to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which can then turn around and give it, all of it, to Brad Schimel's campaign. And all of this is just a precursor to Musk giving money directly to Wisconsin voters. To voters. To voters.
He has engineered a plan where anybody who signs a petition saying that they oppose activist judges, which is the language that Republicans use to refer to judges who do anything that they don't like, gets $100 for signing the petition.
Wait, wait, I just want to slow you down here. He's giving voters who sign a petition, not about this race, but about the generic idea that some judges go too far.
He's paying them $100. Why? And he is paying other people money to refer people to sign this petition. I talked to a Republican mayor of a small town who said his own brother called him and asked him to sign the petition because his brother would get $45 for it.
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Chapter 5: Why is Elon Musk investing in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race?
We're obviously seeing some crazy stuff in D.C. where it seems like any federal judge can stop any action by the president, the of the United States. This is insane. This has got to stop. It's got to stop at the federal level and at the state level. But let me first hand out two $1 million checks in appreciation.
Musk went on to hand out oversized novelty checks to two winners for $1 million each.
OK. So the first check goes to Nicholas Jacobs.
One of those just happened to be the chairman of the Wisconsin College Republicans. That brings a total to $3 million checks that he's given out just in the last week to Wisconsinites who share his support for Brad Schimel.
So, Reid, how are the Democrats in Wisconsin responding to this onslaught? Because from what you have said here, it very much seems like this could potentially tip the race in the direction of shimmel, despite whatever organic Democratic anger is out there. It just seems like a whole lot to counter.
Well, they have pretty much turned their entire campaign into one against Elon Musk.
Now Elon Musk is trying to buy Schimel a seat on the Supreme Court.
They branded a statewide tour, The People versus Elon Musk.
He has now spent over $10 million on my opponent's race. He has basically taken over Brad Schimel's campaign.
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Chapter 6: How is Musk's funding impacting the election dynamics?
And Musk may be decisive in that decision making.
Musk may be making that choice for them where they decide they have no tolerance for billionaires, even those that are friendly to them. Well, Reid, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Thank you, Michael.
We'll be right back.
Here's what else you need to know today. The stock market keeps rejecting President Trump's tariffs. On Monday, two of America's most closely watched stock indexes, the S&P 500 and Nasdaq, ended the first quarter of the year with their worst declines in nearly three years.
Economists say much of the blame lies with Trump's haphazard rollout of tariffs against many major trading partners and the threat of even more tariffs in the days to come. And Marine Le Pen, the current front-runner to become France's next leader, was found guilty of embezzlement on Monday and barred from running for office for the next five years.
The verdict effectively blocks Le Pen, an anti-immigrant nationalist politician, from seeking the presidency in 2027 when French President Emmanuel Macron leaves office because of term limits At the moment, polls show Le Pen leads her nearest rival by about 10 points. Le Pen has vowed to appeal the ruling. Today's episode was produced by Muj Zaydi, Michael Simon Johnson, and Mary Wilson.
It was edited by Michael Benoit and Liz O'Balin. Contains original music by Diane Wong, Dan Powell, and Rowan Emisto. And was engineered by Alyssa Moxley. Our theme music is by Jim Brunberg and Ben Lanford of Wonder Week. That's it for The Daily. I'm Michael Barbaro. See you tomorrow.
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