The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is now over, and Susan Crawford has won! Okay, so this is actually pretty awesome news. Firstly, it can be seen as a significant “no thanks” to Elon Musk throwing million-dollar checks at politics. Additionally, Susan Crawford got some of the highest individual donations ever seen in a Supreme Court race because people were pushing back against Musk.
The whole campaign felt like it was people vs. Elon, and Wisconsinites really came out to vote. Elon Musk spent a ton of money on this race, and he didn’t win. They wanted to flip the court, but nope. So, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is 3-2 Democratic now, which is a big deal because the Senate seat in Wisconsin will be super important in two years. They really wanted control will be crucial in addressing any challenges.
Why do states even elect their judges anyways? It seems like a perfect way to let money influence politics more. No matter how you slice it, you gotta have serious rules about money in politics. Otherwise, you’re just pushing the problem one step up. Judges aren’t elected, but appointed? Then money goes to the people who appoint them. We desperately need rules that can effectively prevent money from influencing politics and ensure that they are enforced fairly.
The large amount of money thrown into this election may have ultimately backfired. In my opinion, people often make political choices based mostly on who they dislike. So Elon pushing so hard, Elon may have inadvertently rallied more people against him. Like, throwing money at it might’ve hurt his cause. Isn’t that funny? In this kind of environment, being an easy scapegoat is the worst move.
This has political implications too. Elon’s probably gearing up to dump a lot of money into races over the next couple of years. But if you’re a Republican House rep thinking about jumping on the Elon train to boost your campaign, this might be a bad look because it could backfire. He put a lot of money into this, and it turned into a blowout loss. So candidates might want to take his money but downplay his involvement or avoid mentioning him altogether, in order to avoid hurting their chances.
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