MILWAUKE, Wisconsin — Democrats are celebrating a bigger than expected victory in a well-known and historically expensive election on Wisconsin’s battlefield, the first statewide voting box contest since President Donald Trump returned to power in January.
Liberal-leaning Judge Susan Crawford is likely to continue to control conservative Judge Brad Simel about 10% points (some votes are still tallied) on important issues such as Congressional District, Voting, Voting, Work, and Work rights to maintain a liberal majority in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
A massive infusion of money from Republicans alongside Democrats from outside Wisconsin has transformed the race into the most expensive judicial election in the country’s history, and partially transformed it into a referendum on Trump’s sweeping and controversial move in the opening game of his second White House mission.
Also, the front and center of the technically nonpartisan showdown were those who hadn’t voted alongside Trump.
Liberal candidates win the first major statewide election of the year
Elon Musk will speak at City Hall in Green Bay, Wisconsin on Sunday, March 30th, 2025. (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps)
“The Wisconsinians head-on rejected the impact of the special interests of Elon Musk, Donald Trump and the billionaire,” claimed Democrat National Committee Chairman Ken Martin.
And looking forward to next year’s bigger contest in the 2026 midterm elections, DNC was called the Wisconsin showdown and “Bellweather Race.”
However, Republicans came to the top of other marquee contests on Tuesday, controlling two vacant Congress seats in Florida’s Red State election. A double-digit victory by the Republican candidate gives the GOP a bit of breathing room to the House of Representatives. There, they hold a very vulnerable majority as the party aims to pass the Trump agenda.
Republicans hold control of two vacant Congress seats in this red state
“The American people sent a clear message tonight. They want an elected official to advance President Trump’s first agenda, and their votes cannot be purchased by the National Democrats.”
The Democratic candidates in two special Congressional elections far outweighed Republican counterparts (signs that the party’s bases were angry and energized). And the Democratic candidate lost 15 and 14 points in the district where Trump scored 37 and 30 points in the presidential election last November.
Democrats quickly lit the spotlight on how the party “overperformed” in Florida. And House Majority PAC is a House Democrat supporting top super PACs, touting the results “showing that political headwinds are firmly present on our backs towards 2026.”
But Mike Marinella, a spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee, claimed that “Democrats were only lit over $20,000,000 in their fateful efforts to make the two deep red Florida districts competitive, and were blown out of the water in the most surprising way.”
Republican Randy Fine, Centre, won a special election on April 1, 2025, to fill the vacancy left by Mike Waltz’s resignation, which became Trump’s national security adviser. (AP Photo/Perrand M. Evenhack)
But the results in Florida, particularly Wisconsin, will likely shock Democrats and examine their efforts to target Musk.
Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has been making headlines with the federal workforce in piloting Trump’s recently created government efficiency, handing out about $20 million in Wisconsin races through the Arrid Group to support Shimmel.
And in a controversial move, Musk handed out a $1 million check at a meeting in Green Bay on Sunday evening, with two Wisconsin voters already voting in the contest and signing a petition to stop the “activist judge.”
“We could not have imagined taking on the wealthiest man in the world for justice in Wisconsin. And we won.”
Chuck Schumer, Senate Minority Leader, a top Democrat at the Chamber of Commerce, allegedly that Wisconsin voters “sent a definitive message to Elon Musk, Donald Trump and Doge by rejecting extreme Republicans for the Supreme Court.”
“Everyone who counted Democrats was wrong,” he emphasized.
But Democrats now have serious brand issues.
In separate national surveys conducted last month by CNN and NBC News, the party’s favorable ratings sank to an all-time low. These figures followed the Democrats’ record low in a Kinnipiac University survey in the field in February.
Additionally, the latest Fox News National Polly shows Congressional Democrats’ approval rate is close to an all-time low. And Democrat activists are furious at the party’s inability to blunt President Donald Trump’s agenda.
And when it comes to low annual and special elections, the administration’s parties, clearly Republicans in the country’s capital, often face political headwinds.
“We’ll stand up to fight another day, but this wasn’t our day,” Shimmel said in a concession speech.
Judge Brad Schemmel, a conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court election, conceded the loss of the election on April 1, 2025 in Pewaukee, Wisconsin.
And Wisconsin GOP Chairman Brian Simming said, “The success of November was what made the April election a challenge.”
Republicans note that Democrats enjoyed numerous special election victories in 2023 and 2024 before suffering a serious setback in the last November election.
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“Special elections are special for reasons and not useful because there are always some useful canaries in the mines ahead,” veteran Republican strategist Colin Reid told Fox News Digital. “It can be used as an energy barometer, but it also reflects the individual candidates whose names are included in the poll.”
And Reid argued, “The big challenge for Democrats going forward is to continue the path of continuing positioning outside the mainstream on many common sense issues beyond the reflective and inclusive opposition to the White House.”
Paul Steinhauser is a political reporter based in New Hampshire.
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