Normally, state supreme court races have all the drama of a city planning and zoning board meeting.
Not so with Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The tilt is being cast as a barometer measurement of a key swing state's mood as the nation starts its third month under the Trump administration; the drama is heighened by last week's Democrat victory in a traditionally GOP-cominated state Senate seat in Pennsylvania. On top of the national mood-measuring siginficance, there are important cases on state voting laws, abortion, public employee unions and legislative redisctricting on the state high court's docket in the next court term.
So the Trump administration is pulling out the big guns. Scott Presler's organization, Early Vote Action, is working the hustings trying to turn out low-propensity voters for a low-propensity election:
Eric, we hit our goal of texting 71,000 voters in Western Wisconsin.
— ThePersistence (@ScottPresler) March 29, 2025
The entire nation is coming together as a team to support Brad Schimel.
We just uploaded ANOTHER campaign of 88,000 voters.
When we finish that campaign tomorrow, we will do another.
Schimel has momentum!
And Elon Musk is (as this is written) imminently arriving in Wisconson, having already spent big money on the race.
But it's money he hasn't spent yet that's getting most of the attention; Musk is promising to give a million dollars to each of two lucky Wisconsin voters:
Musk announced the giveaway on his social media platform, X. After it was scrutinized as a possible violation of Wisconsin’s bribery statute, he deleted the initial post and reworded a new one.
Musk said in his original post he would “give a talk in Wisconsin.”
“Entrance is limited to those who have voted in the Supreme Court election,” he wrote. “I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote. This is super important.”
Concerned brow-furrowing is going on:
Musk changing the terms of his offer may mitigate the circumstances, but it doesn’t necessarily resolve the legal issue, said Bryna Godar, staff attorney with the State Democracy Research Initiative at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
“The question is whether the offers are ‘in order to induce’ people to vote or go to the polls, and there can be arguments made on either side of that question,” she said in an email.
But the plan has survived its first round of legal scrutiny:
A Wisconsin appellate court denied the state Democratic attorney general’s request to stop billionaire Elon Musk from handing over $1 million checks to two voters at a rally planned for Sunday, just two days before a closely contested Supreme Court election.
The denial Saturday by the Wisconsin court of appeals is the latest twist in Musk’s deep involvement in the race, which has set a record for spending in a judicial election and has become a litmus test for the opening months of Donald Trump’s presidency. Trump and Musk are backing Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel in the race, while Democrats are behind Dane County Judge Susan Crawford.
Attorney General Josh Kaul filed the lawsuit Friday, arguing that Musk’s offer violates the law. Kaul on Saturday later appealed to the state Court of Appeals, after a county court judge refused earlier in the day to hear the request for an emergency injunction to block the payments.
Time for further appeals is winding down; the case could go to the state's top court on Monday - while the giveaway is supposed to happen (as this is written) Sunday afternoon at a rally in Green Bay.
Pop your popcorn.
