Winning by ten points in Wisconsin’s special Supreme Court election, Judge Susan Crawford delivered a stunning rebuke to President Donald Trump and his centibillionaire sidekick Elon Musk, both of whom endorsed and supported her right-wing opponent Brad Schimel.
The decisive Wisconsin defeat was taken as a stark warning for next year’s Congressional midterm elections, with Musk himself bemoaning the prospect of a Democratic Congress. "Losing this judge race has good chance of causing Republicans to lose control of the House. If they lose control of the House, there will be non-stop impeachment hearings, there will be non-stop hearings and subpoenas, they're going to do everything to stop the [Trump] agenda,” he told Fox News before the results came in.
Crawford exulted in her victory speech that she had beaten “the world’s richest man,” plutocratic mastermind of Trump’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency and its chaotic, deeply unpopular crusade to wreck federal agencies. Athough he spent an estimated $25 million against her, turning the Wisconsin race into the most expensive judicial election in American history, she defeated him and Schimel by 55-45 percent.
The Tesla boss’s humiliation was underscored by a campaign trip to the Badger State two days before the election, when he handed out million-dollar checks and donned a “cheesehead” hat. Just hours before voters went to the polls, his auto company’s board asked him to step down as its chief executive.
While Republicans attributed the Wisconsin outcome to Democratic intensity and lower propensity to vote among the Trump base, the results also pointed to potential disenchantment among voters who went Republican last fall. High turnout in Democratic strongholds like Dane County and Milwaukee drove the liberal surge – but Crawford also appears to have flipped a few major counties that backed Trump in 2024
With over 95 percent of the vote counted, the Democratic-backed judge won Kenosha, Racine, Outagamie and Sauk counties, all of which went Republican last year. Her margin in Kenosha County, one of the state’s largest, was roughly five percent.
Trump himself tried to brush off Schimel’s defeat. On Truth Social he emphasized instead that Wisconsin voters approved an amendment to the Wisconsin state constitution requiring voters to display photo identification before casting a ballot. The state already requires voter ID by law, but the constitutional change will protect the law from being changed.
One Republican state representative in Idaho was recently caught off-guard when a far-right political activist had Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents sent to her potato farm.
According to Newsweek, Rep. Stephanie Mickelsen — who is serving her second term in Idaho House District 32A — is now publicly railing against Ada County, Idaho Republican Party vice chairman Ryan Spoon in an op-ed. Mickelsen recalled in a recent essay for the Idaho Statesman that Spoon had ICE agents deployed to her farm, which resulted in them arresting one farm worker roughly a week after Spoon tweeted at President Donald Trump's border czar, Tom Homan. She didn't mention Spoon by name but referred to him as "someone working remotely for an insurance company who thinks he knows Idaho values and the [agriculture] business better than you do."
"Could you please send some illegal immigration raids to the businesses owned by Idaho state Rep. Stephanie Mickelson," Spoon wrote on January 21, misspelling Mickelsen's name. "She has been bragging about how many illegals her businesses employ."
Mickelsen wrote in her op-ed that her farm "complies with all applicable laws regarding employment and immigration," though she would also "welcome improvements to the laws and enforcement." But she didn't spare her critics among the GOP base who criticized her for acknowledging that large and influential sectors of the economy like agriculture are heavily reliant on immigrant labor.
"As a state representative, I’ve experienced this firsthand," Mickelsen wrote in her op-ed. "For honestly discussing real issues relating to immigration policy — recognizing both the need for border security and the reality that critical aspects of our economy depend on foreign workers — I’ve become the target of intimidation tactics designed to silence me."
On his social media channels, Spoon has repeatedly targeted Mickelsen over her comments about the outsized role undocumented labor plays in the American economy. He's also amplified content from an account called "Stop Idaho RINOs" [Republicans In Name Only] including a floor speech in which she cautioned her fellow Republicans against immigration measures that could harm the Gem State's economy. Newsweek also reported that a University of Idaho study found that roughly 35,000 undocumented immigrants work in Idaho's agriculture, hospitality and construction industries.
"If you guys think that you haven't been touched by an illegal immigrants' hands in some way, either your traveling or your food, you are kidding yourselves,' she said earlier this month.
Last Tuesday, a Democrat pulled off an upset win in a deep-red Pennsylvania state Senate seat where President Donald Trump won by 15 percentage points last year.
Add that into the list of other special elections Democrats have overperformed in this year, and it’s clear why Republicans are suddenly sweating the special election in Florida's Sixth Congressional District.
Florida’s Sixth District was vacated by Republican Mike Waltz, who you might now know as the world’s most incompetent national security adviser. Last year, Trump won the district by 30 points—a huge margin—so it shouldn’t be, by any stretch of the imagination, competitive.
And yet …
A poll by St. Pete Polls for news outlet Florida Politics finds that Republican nominee Randy Fine is leading Democrat Josh Weil by a measly four points, 48 percent to 44 percent. That puts a Weil victory within the poll’s margin of error. Even worse for Republicans is that an internal poll from Tony Fabrizio, Trump’s 2024 pollster, finds Fine down 3 points to Weil, according to Axios. The same pollster had Fine up 12 points in February.
But let’s take a breath. Normally, undecided voters end up voting in line with their district/state’s partisan lean, which is R+14 for Florida’s Sixth, according to the Cook Political Report. That means it’s 14 points more Republican than the country as a whole. So, in a normal election, I would expect the Republican would win this seat with roughly 57 percent of the vote to the Democrat’s 43 percent—a spread of 14 points.
That, in itself, would flash some warning signs in GOP hallways. In November, Waltz won the seat with over 66 percent of the vote, in what ended up being a good cycle for Republicans overall.
But this isn’t a normal election. This is a special election in April, in a climate in which rank-and-file Democrats are seething over the state of the nation. Turnout will be the name of the game, and by all indications, Democrats are far more motivated than Republicans.
In the St. Pete/Florida Politics poll, Weil leads among those who have voted, 51 percent to 43 percent. As of Thursday, in early-voting returns, registered Republicans have just a five-point advantage in who has voted so far. The chances of an upset are small, but they do exist—shockingly. And a lot of that could be because, according to that St. Pete’s/Florida Politics poll, 51 percent of the district’s likely voters approve of the job Trump is doing as president, while 45 percent disapprove. Remember, he won by 30 points in November. Given that, it’s not so surprising to see Fine’s anemic early performance.
Uncertainty over this district reportedly played a role in the Trump administration pulling Rep. Elise Stefanik’s nomination to be U.N. ambassador. The nomination had already been languishing as House Republicans were loath to (temporarily) lose her vote, given their razor-thin majority in the chamber.
But pulling Stefanik’s nomination doesn’t solve the GOP’s bigger problem. Its ability to maintain party discipline in the House has been genuinely impressive, and has been driven almost exclusively by Trump’s strong-arm efforts to threaten members who stray with primary challenges. They fear Trump. And Elon Musk, who might fund those challengers if a representative crosses the president.
But what happens if Trump is also alienating voters to such an extent that districts that backed him by 30 points are now competitive?
Put another way, Trump keeps his troops in line because they think his backing will give them the best chance to win reelection in 2026. So what happens if being closely tied to Trump makes it less likely they survive? What good is weathering a Republican primary only to end up getting steamrolled by a Democrat in the general election? It’s quite the conundrum, isn’t it?
The closer the margin in Tuesday’s special election, the bigger that conundrum for Republicans. And if Democrats pull off a big upset?
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel told a group of canvassers in Waukesha County last weekend that he needs to be elected to provide a “support network” for President Donald Trump and shared complaints about the 2020 election that have been frequently espoused by election deniers.
In a video of the remarks, Schimel is speaking to a group of canvassers associated with Turning Point USA — a right-wing political group that has become increasingly active in Wisconsin’s Republican party.
On the campaign trail, Schimel, a Waukesha County judge and former Republican state attorney general, has repeatedly said he is running for the Supreme Court to bring impartiality back to the body. He’s claimed that since the Court’s liberals gained a majority after the 2023 election, it has been legislating from the bench on behalf of the Democratic party.
But in more private events and to more conservative audiences, he’s often spoken more openly about his conservative politics.
At the Turning Point event, he said that prior to the 2024 presidential election, the country “had walked up to edge of the abyss and we could hear the wind howling,” but that the Republican party and its supporters helped the country take “a couple steps back” by electing Donald Trump.
Democrats and their “media allies” still have “bulldozers waiting to push into all that,” he said, by bringing lawsuits to stop Trump’s efforts to dismantle federal agencies without the approval of Congress, end birthright citizenship and fire thousands of federal workers.
“Donald Trump doesn’t do this by himself, there has to be a support network around it,” Schimel said. “They filed over 70 lawsuits against him since he took the oath of office barely a month ago, over 70 lawsuits to try to stop almost every single thing he’s doing because they don’t want him to get a win. They’re so desperate for him to not get a win that they won’t let America have a win. That’s what they’re doing. The only way we’re going to stop that is if the courts stop it. That’s the only place to stop this lawfare.”
When Schimel was the state attorney general, he lobbied the Republican-controlled Legislature to create the position of solicitor general under the state Department of Justice to help him file lawsuits against Democratic policies enacted by then-President Barack Obama. Republicans cut the position after Democrat Josh Kaul defeated Schimel in the 2018 election.
During his time in office Schimel joined a lawsuit with the state of Texas to have the Affordable Care Act declared unconstitutional. After the suit was successful in a Texas court, he said, “I’m glad he did this before I left office, because I got one more win before moving on.”
Kaul withdrew the state from the lawsuit after taking office in 2019, and the the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the suit by a 7-2 vote.
But, in his Turning Point remarks, Schimel accused his opponent, Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, of participating in the kind of “lawfare” that is being used against Trump now.
“My opponent is an expert on lawfare,” he said, citing her work as a lawyer against the state’s voter ID law and support from liberal billionaire donors.
Crawford campaign spokesperson Derrick Honeyman said that Schimel’s comments show he’ll be a “rubber stamp” for the Republican party.
“Brad Schimel’s latest remarks are no surprise, especially coming from someone who’s been caught on his knees begging for money and is bought and paid for by Elon Musk,” Honeyman said. “Schimel is not running to be a fair and impartial member of the Supreme Court, but rather be a rubber-stamp for Musk and a far-right agenda to ban abortion and strip away health care. Schimel has recently been caught behind closed doors saying the Supreme Court ‘screwed’ Trump over by refusing to overturn the results of the 2020 election, and these latest remarks are all part of a pattern of extreme and shady behavior from Schimel. Wisconsin deserves a Supreme Court Justice who answers to the people, not the highest bidder.”
Schimel’s campaign has received millions in support from political action committees associated with Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, who has been leading Trump’s effort to slash government programs.
Earlier this week, the Washington Post reported that Schimel told a group of supporters in Jefferson County that Trump had been “screwed over” by the Wisconsin Supreme Court when it ruled against his effort to overturn the results of the 2020 election. In his remarks in Waukesha, he highlighted a number of talking points popular with many of the state’s most prominent 2020 election deniers. He blamed decisions by the Supreme Court for allowing those issues to persist.
“There were a string of other cases that the Supreme Court refused to hear before the election that impacted the election that year unquestionably,” Schimel said.
Schimel pointed to the issue of special voting deputies in nursing homes as a major problem.
Because of the COVID-19 pandemic, officials known as special voting deputies who normally go into nursing homes to help residents cast absentee ballots were unable to enter those facilities.
Republicans have claimed that decision allowed people who should have been ineligible to vote because they’d been declared incompetent to cast a ballot. Conspiracy theorists have pointed to affidavits filed by family members of nursing home residents that their relatives were able to vote. Only a judge can declare someone incompetent to vote, however.
The issue led to the Republican sheriff of Racine County to accuse members of the Wisconsin Elections Commission (WEC) of committing felony election fraud and became a target in former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman’s widely derided review of the 2020 election.
Schimel also blamed the election commission’s decision to exclude the Green Party’s candidates from the ballot that year for Trump’s loss. WEC voted not to allow the party on the ballot because there were errors with the candidate’s addresses on the paperwork. The party sued to have the decision overturned, but the Supreme Court ruled 4-3 against the party because it was too close to the election.
While conservatives held the majority on the Court at the time, Schimel blamed liberals.
“Well, that was with three liberals and a conservative getting soft headed,” Schimel said, referring to Justice Brian Hagedorn, who frequently acted as a swing vote when conservatives controlled the Court.
Schimel added: “Those billionaires from around the country said, ‘What if we could get four liberals on the court? Then we don’t have to fool a conservative into doing something stupid.’ And then they did it in 2023. They bought that election, and they stole the Wisconsin Supreme Court, and they put us in chaos ever since.”
Mike Browne, a spokesperson for progressive political group A Better Wisconsin Together, said Schimel is willing to say anything to curry favor with right-wing supporters and financial backers.
“Brad Schimel has extreme positions like using an 1849 law to try to ban abortion, supporting pardons for violent January 6 insurrectionists, endorsing debunked 2020 election lies, and shilling for Elon Musk,” Browne said. “His bungling attempts to try to talk his way out of it when he gets called out don’t change the fact that time and again we see Brad Schimel on his knees for right-wing campaign cash instead of standing up for Wisconsin or our rights and freedoms.”
The Schimel campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
