Wisconsin Supreme Court election results: What happened and why it matters
Democrat-backed liberal judge Susan Crawford won a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, after a closely watched race that became a proxy battle between President Donald Trump’s administration and the opposition.
The contest also became a litmus test of the political influence of Trump and Elon Musk, his ally and the world’s richest man, who poured millions of dollars into supporting Crawford’s opponent, Republican-backed conservative Brad Schimel.
Here is what happened and why it matters:
Susan Crawford wins Wisconsin Supreme Court election
There are seven judges in the Wisconsin Supreme Court. Until last year, four of them leaned liberal and three, conservative. Then, one liberal judge announced retirement, leaving one seat empty and prompting the vote on Tuesday.
The federal and state Supreme Courts are supposed to be non-partisan and not aligned with either party. However, there are liberal judges, backed by the Democrats, and conservative judges, backed by the Republicans — and often, they vote predictably, along ideological lines.
That is why both parties try to stack higher courts with those whom they believe will endorse their policies.
The race in Wisconsin was between county judge Crawford and the state’s former Republican Attorney General Schimel, who is also a county judge.
Crawford won the election, maintaining the court’s four-three liberal majority. She held a 10-point lead over Schimel, with 98 percent of the votes counted, according to The Associated Press news agency, at last count. The AP declared the race in Crawford’s favour.
Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 presidential election
Wisconsin was a swing state in the November 2024 election and Trump defeated Democrat former Vice President Kamala Harris by a narrow 0.8 percentage points.
Trump’s win was significant because Wisconsin was considered a blue wall state, reliably won by Democrats in modern US history. From 1992 to 2012, Wisconsin had always voted for Democrats in presidential elections. In the 2016 election, Trump flipped Wisconsin alongside other blue wall states Pennsylvania and Michigan, all three of which were won back by former Democratic President Joe Biden in 2020. Trump won the three states again in November last year.
Ahead of the Wisconsin vote, Schimel earned an endorsement from Trump. On March 22, Trump posted in support of the conservative candidate on his Truth Social platform.
“Brad Schimel is running against Radical Left Liberal Susan Crawford, who has repeatedly given child molesters, rapists, women beaters, and domestic abusers ‘light’ sentences,” Trump wrote, without any evidence to back his accusations. He called Crawford “the handpicked voice of the Leftists”.
“All Voters who believe in Common Sense should GET OUT TO VOTE EARLY for Brad Schimel,” Trump wrote.
A big loss for Musk
Musk and political groups associated with him spent more than $21m to support Brad Schimel. Musk also paid $1m each to three voters for signing a petition opposing “activist judges”.
The owner of Tesla and SpaceX rose to prominence during Trump’s presidential campaign last year and currently handles the cost-cutting Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), which has been laying off tens of thousands of federal employees.
Crawford, and the Democrats that backed her, used Musk as an argument in her campaign, alleging that the billionaire was “buying” the election. The Tuesday race broke the record for the costliest judicial race in US history.
The overall spending on this race was close to $99m, according to a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. Previously, the record was held by the state’s Supreme Court race in 2023, where $51m was spent.
According to the Brennan Center, Crawford spent $28m herself as a candidate, while Schimel spent $15m. But both also received significant funding from allies. If Musk and his groups backed Schimel’s candidature, several wealthy liberal donors funded Crawford’s campaign, including billionaire Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker. “Elon Musk is not good at this,” Pritzker wrote in an X post as results were coming in, pointing to Crawford’s win.
Musk, who spent about $250m to help Trump during his presidential campaign, promised to pay volunteers $20 for each voter they recruited before the Tuesday vote. He also offered voters $100 in exchange for uploading a picture of anyone gesturing thumbs up while holding Schimel’s photo.
Additionally, Musk held a campaign rally for Schimel in Wisconsin’s Green Bay, where some 2,000 people showed up. However, in Brown County, home to Green Bay, Crawford defeated Schimel. Trump had won in this county in the presidential election by 7 percentage points.
Musk has not made any public comments yet on Crawford’s election win.
Voter ID amendment approved by Wisconsin voters
Musk, however, posted on X about how an amendment adding a voter ID requirement to Wisconsin’s constitution had passed. “This was the most important thing,” he wrote.
This was the most important thing https://t.co/x99NunhUkA
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 2, 2025
For nearly a decade, state law has required photo IDs for voters, but having it enshrined in the constitution makes it even more difficult to roll back on the rule.
Conservatives have pushed for the amendment across the country, arguing that it will prevent voter fraud. Democratic leaders have opposed this amendment, arguing it will dissuade certain voters, such as students, older voters and Black voters. According to a Brennan Center fact sheet, studies prove that non-white people are less likely to carry their ID to polls. Democrats have long counted on such people as a major support base.
Jill Underly re-elected as Wisconsin’s state superintendent
Separately, Democrat-backed Jill Underly defeated Republican-backed Brittany Kinser to continue leading the state’s Department of Public Instruction.
The department is responsible for handling public education in the state.
Underly’s win comes days after Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the Department of Education, making education a responsibility of the states rather than the federal government.
Why was the Wisconsin Supreme Court race so important?
The Tuesday vote was the first major election in the country since November, serving as a test for Trump’s presidency, and for his influence in the swing state.
The election was also a test of the extent to which Musk could use funding to influence the results of the election. It also determined who holds ideological control of the state’s Supreme Court.
Source: Apps Support
Tensions flare over pro-Palestine activism in PM Starmer’s UK constituency
London, United Kingdom – Outraged by the onslaught on Palestinians in Gaza, a group of volunteers in the fashionable London borough of Camden urged the local council last year to stop investing in companies with ties to Israel.
The petition, led by the Camden Friends of Palestine group and signed by more than 4,200 residents, was an act of grassroots activism in one of the most symbolic constituencies in the country.
During last year’s general election, Keir Starmer, the British prime minister, held onto his seat of Holborn and St Pancras, a Labour Party stronghold which includes most of Camden.
Ultimately, the petition to divest the council’s pension funds failed to achieve its goal.
After a debate, the council referred the issue of “responsible investment” to a so-called Pension Committee, according to minutes of the meeting.
Weeks ago, tensions flared further, as the council moved to ban banners, placards, signs, and flags in council meetings – a measure understood to be aimed at taming the local pro-Palestine movement since posters reading phrases such as “Stop Genocide” have previously been raised at the Town Hall.
A spokesperson from the Camden Friends of Palestine group told Al Jazeera that in their view, the move reflected the “undemocratic and authoritarian measures by Camden Council [which] are designed to shield them from criticism and evade accountability to their residents”.
“This is not the end,” they said. “Our solidarity with the people of Palestine is limitless, and we will continue to demand divestment from the Israeli war machine,” they added.
Camden Council told Al Jazeera that while petitions “must be on matters which significantly impact the borough”, delegations concerning the council’s investments are “not automatically excluded as these are matters which do potentially impact the borough”.
For more than a year, members of Camden Friends of Palestine have been meeting at a local arts and community centre every Thursday to discuss their campaigns and introduce new volunteers to their network.
A spokesperson for the group alleged that their attempts to engage with the council had been met with “extreme hostility … whether through calling police on residents, cancelling meetings [or] closing the public gallery in the council for five months”.
In May last year, the group held a meeting in front of an official building to mark Nakba Day, a commemoration of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine in 1948, after the public gallery was closed.
In October, Fitzrovia News, a local news outlet, reported that as Camden Friends of Palestine activists held their “Stop Genocide” signs in the public gallery in a silent protest, police were called in to remove them.
‘Communicating people’s feelings to national-level government’
In June 2024, the group organised a week of action aimed at raising awareness about Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, the most recent of which has killed more than 50,000 Palestinians.
Israel’s latest war on Gaza began in October, 2023, following the Hamas-led incursion into southern Israel during which 1,139 people were killed and more than 200 taken captive.
As part of its Gaza Week initiative, speeches were given outside Kentish Town Station.
Archie, a volunteer, said their events often draw counterprotesters including “Islamophobic, sort of football hooligan types that you’d see at fascist mobilisations going back years and years”.
“Although there has been resistance, I don’t think it’s particularly representative of any larger feeling in the community,” he explained.
“People really enjoy being a part of it … they’re coming back to the meetings as much as anything because it’s a positive social space in a society where I think people are increasingly atomised and alienated.”
But fearing backlash from some counterprotesters, Archie requested Al Jazeera withhold his surname.
Undeterred by the council’s response to its petition, the group has joined a London-wide campaign called “Shake the Civ” which focuses on pushing councils to divest from unethical companies.
Paul Bagguley, a political sociology professor at the University of Leeds, told Al Jazeera that pressuring local councils on global issues is a trend dating back to the 1980s.
“There [were] a lot of local protests to get councils to declare their areas nuclear-free zones as a kind of protest against nuclear weapons. So in many ways, it’s following a kind of similar sort of pattern to other kinds of protests over several decades,” he explained.
While local councils could express support for Palestinians or criticise Israeli policy, there’s “little that they can do substantively in terms of policy”, he said.
“Quite often, the consequences are really kind of symbolic. So they’re about communicating people’s feelings to national-level government. So that’s another kind of, if you like, level or form of political communication,” he said.
‘We built community power’
About seven miles northeast of Camden, activists in the borough of Waltham Forest have also taken their pro-Palestine movement to the local council.
In November 2023, residents belonging to the newly formed Waltham Forest for a Free Palestine (WFFP) group called on their MP at the time, Labour’s John Cryer, to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.
In 2024, the group launched a divestment campaign akin to the Camden petition – and was successful.
In July, the council announced that it was “updating its ethical investment policy so that we can divest our pension funds from companies involved in the arms trade” – becoming the first municipality in the United Kingdom to agree to divest from arms companies that supply weapons to Israel.
“As we launched our local divestment campaign, our reach and support grew massively. We have a community of hundreds of people who have turned up to an action, written to a councillor, door-knocked, made food for meetings [and] organised outreach sessions … and over 3,500 people signed our petition within three months last year,” Jade, 31, a WFFP organiser, told Al Jazeera.
“The community of people who live, work and study in Waltham Forest has been hugely supportive. We built community power to challenge the bureaucratic violence and inaction of local politicians on key issues like ethical divestment and naming a genocide.”
Source: Apps Support