Tuesday’s elections in Wisconsin and Florida were kind to favourites, but to Elon Musk, the billionaire White House adviser. And the outcome can last forever since the vote was counted.
Judge Susan Crawford won a vital election to maintain liberal control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court despite the massive push from Musk and his millions. Meanwhile, two Republican candidates from Florida won a special House election in the deep red district. However, their nominees won only one of three contests to vote, which was a good night for the Democrats.
They spent backing Crawford, who cruised to victory without much suspense on Tuesday night.
And while Republicans pad the majority of the slim home in Washington, there are two more reinforcements at a critical legislative moment, the Democratic candidate has significantly improved the party’s November performance, raising questions about whether Democrats can maintain that momentum in next year’s midterm elections.
It’s a significant takeaway from Tuesday’s election, including the meaning of politics and other campaigns this year and next year.
Democrats have a new boogeyman
It appears they have found a new election boogieman in Musk just months after losing the presidential election while Democrats didn’t generate strong enough backlash against President Donald Trump.
Recent polls have shown that mask favors are lower than Trump favors in both Wisconsin and across the country, so it makes sense that Pro Crawford’s campaign will lean towards masks in messaging. And they did – Crawford and Democrats repeatedly evoked musks on the stump, and her campaign ran a television ad accusing Musk of “trying to buy Supreme Court Shimmel.”
The decision to lean heavily towards the rebel message occurs as Musk spent so long to help Judge Brad Simel. Musk’s Super PAC spent more than $12.5 million on independent spending in races, and the billionaire has donated $3 million to the state Republicans.
The focus on musk is particularly noteworthy as Democrats seem to deliberately avoid highlighting Trump’s support of Shimmel. The move strategist on both parties said it was embarrassingly designed to avoid blatantly juice out voter turnout for Trump-loving voters in the state that was transported narrowly in two of the three previous presidential elections.
Democrats and groups supporting Crawford chose to join villain Musk instead, as they never mentioned support for Trump’s Shimmel TV ads. (Simel, on his part, ran the ads in the final 11 days of the campaign, which leaned heavily towards the president’s support and highlighted his relationship with Trump.)
Time can you tell us if Democrats can replicate the strategy in a race where Musk doesn’t personally play such a major role, or if he ultimately leaves the White House with less usefulness as a boogieman.
And the potential debt of Musk must be taken entirely in context. In other words, his willingness to lend his wealth to politics has expanded beyond his support of Trump, and his incredible wealth and his unique character cult makes him an important ally to the Republican Party. Buckle for the expensive and noisy 2026 midterm elections and musk is in the middle.
Republicans’ 2024 playbook wasn’t enough in Wisconsin
In the final weeks of the Wisconsin race, Republicans and groups supporting Shimmel hit Crawford in an ad over transgender issues (in addition to highlighting support from Trump and Musk).
That move is very similar to the Republicans at Tuck, with Trump using the home stretch of his successful 2024 campaign against Democrats in Wisconsin and several other swing states.
Both sides use ads to softly smear the other party into the crime, and the group that supports Shimmel has denounced Crawford for her role in sentencing in a particular case involving a convicted sex offender, boosting Shimmel’s role in providing harsh writing against the criminals.
That strategy was perfect for a move that closely resembles the move, with Sen. Ron Johnson and the group supporting him against Democrat challenger Mandela Burns in the battlefield-competitive 2022 Senate race.
But in hoping Crawford and the liberal candidates will affirm from those attacks, they support Crawford and the group fighting back against crime with the ads themselves.
The Pro Trump playbook replaced Matt Getz, former GOP official and now Trump’s national security adviser, in two special elections in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional districts. Republicans worked to invigorate the base, aiming to increase the turnout for GOPs in the Ruby-Red district.
Trump hosted teletown halls for both Republican candidates and outside groups, and on the last day of the race, he reminded voters that they had Trump support. And Republicans ultimately avoided something similar to the close call in two solid districts.
Florida’s chief financial officer, Jimmy Patronis, is projected to score 15 points in the first district race, while GOP State Sen. Randy Fine is projected to win 14 points. But their margins were about half the size of Trump in November.
House GOP expands its majority
Tuesday’s election had more impact than the world of campaign politics. In Congress, the GOP victory pair in Florida gives Republican leaders a little more room to pass through their key priorities.
If all seat members vote, Republicans lose three GOP votes and can still afford to pass the law, even if all Democrats oppose the measure. (Two democratic seats are currently available.)
Patronis and Fine head to Congress at a critical moment for the GOP. Republicans are trying to put together a drastic budget proposal to tackle Trump’s top priorities, including the 2017 tax cut.
Fine has shown he supports Trump’s priorities, telling Trump with the president at Teletown Hall last week.
Patronis is also Trump’s ally, but self-explained fiscal conservatives told NBC News in January that they could clash with GOP leaders about government spending, saying, “I don’t waste people’s money and I have no problem calling for absurdity.”
In an interview last week, I asked if there are any elements of the budget proposal that he may not support.
“My principle is to make sure that CD-1 citizens restore the dollars. We spend their dollars more efficiently,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good to create a path to take something away from the benefits or qualifications someone is expecting. I like to give people choice.
The Democrats still have some energy
Trump’s victory in November may have deflected Democrats, but the party showed signs of life in Tuesday’s election.
Democrats during the Trump era overwhelmed Republicans in fundraising, and Tuesday’s race showed the fundraising boom had not stopped, and Democrats continue to enjoy the important benefits of the broadcast wave.
Crawford’s funding has overtaken Schimel with her airwaves, spending more than $26 million on Schimel’s nearly $14 million, according to ad tracking company Adimpact. While the GOP’s outside group jumped in to fill the gap, Crawford’s advantages are noteworthy.
In Florida, Democrats were short in the deep red house districts, but they raised millions of dollars in the process. Democrat Josh Weil, a public school teacher, had raked over $10 million as of Monday, while District 6 opponents raised $2 million, including $600,000 from the candidate himself.
In District 1, as of March 12, Valimont raised $6.5 million, while Patronis raised $2.1 million.
Their losses also highlight the seemingly unlimited money limits, with funded candidates unable to overcome the deep Republican obliqueness of both districts. But they cut to that advantage.
Both Weil and Valimont surpassed former vice president Kamala Harris in November, with Weil’s vote share improved by Harris’ eight points, while Barrimont surpassed Harris’ vote share 11 points. Crawford also outperformed Harris on Tuesday night, bringing Harris’s lost several months ago by a single digit higher.
Democrats touted these margins, saying the party has overperformed in several special elections this year for the state’s legislative seats this year.
Battlefield voters have been adjusted
Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race was all tons of factors, all in the fight for partisan control of the courts on Tuesday, including Musk, Trump, tens of millions of dollars spent, and the fight for partisan control of the courts. Record voter turnout.
Votes are still counting, but turnout already covers the 1.8 million vote turnout for the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court competition, with 2025 candidates taking away the 2023 vote total. Additionally, the number of voters for this year’s contest will be closer to the number that will vote in the middle of 2022.
It covers Fondulac County, which was founded in 1854 by the Republican Party. Over 39,000 people voted this year.
Door County has a turnout of 15,300 trends near 2023, close to 17,300 in 2023, Swing County, north of Green Bay, which sided with the president’s winner in six of its past seven presidential elections.
According to NBC News Decision Desk, Wisconsin already had nearly 2.2 million votes by midnight Eastern Time, and the pitching is still outstanding. If that prediction is successful, the race will be shy about voter turnout in the midterm 2022.
Don’t expect consistently high voter turnout to dissipate immediately in Trump-era elections until you get signs pointing in a different direction.
This story first appeared on nbcnews.com. More from NBC News:
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