The GOP’s first election in Wisconsin: Why the Republicans kept their nose in the early stages of Trump’s run-of-the-mills campaign
In a judicial election in Wisconsin that saw a record amount of money spent, national attention and was something of a referendum on President Trump’s agenda, Democrats won by a large margin.
The Republicans won two special elections in Florida by a total of 14 points. But these are very red districts. The Republicans won these seats by more than 30 points, and Democrats had to fight hard to keep them, so they ate into the margins even more. (These are the seats that were held by Mike Waltz, now the national security adviser, and Matt Gaetz, whom Trump wanted to be attorney general before his nomination was pulled over concerns that he lacked sufficient Republican support to be confirmed.)
Ad Impact says Susan Crawford, who is a liberal judge, helped keep the state Supreme Court in Democrats’ direction in a race that saw nearly $70 million in advertising. It included a bit of money from Musk (more on him below).
Crawford won the race by 10 points with more than 85% of the vote in the state that had decided the presidential race by just one point in four years.
According to Ballotpedia, 60 Republican House members won their seats by 15 points or less. The conservative Wall Street Journal editorial board, well read in Trump world, is calling the results a “MAGA backlash.”
Democrats were able to win a judicial seat in the state in the future, but lost the presidential election. There are warning signs for the GOP which is why they did so well in the first years of the president’s first term. If a president continues with a divisive agenda, these elections can be a guide to success in mid-terms.
Does Musk really care about the Wisconsin judicial race? Getting out the vote early on the election, but what did he do afterward?
Musk went all in in the Wisconsin judicial race. The world’s richest man has his own groups that spent around $20 million. He also made an appearance in the state (wearing a cheese hat), offered $1 million checks to voters and even said “the entire destiny of humanity” could rest on the race.
Trump is likely to do what he does — put a positive spin on the results or say everything is fine and point to the Florida elections (as he did in an ALLCAPS social media post Tuesday night without mentioning the Wisconsin judicial result). But it likely isn’t making him happy, especially considering how much heat Musk and his DOGE group have taken. Musk’s favorability ratings were a net- negative in Wisconsin. Musk represented something of a heat shield for Trump on an unpopular way of making sweeping cuts to the government, but, after Tuesday’s results, how long can he remain in the public eye and not start to affect Trump’s political standing?
So far, Trump’s overall approval rating has been marginally higher than during his first term because of strong GOP backing and because of men. But an AP-NORC poll out this week showed Trump’s approval rating falling to 42%, and his economic approval only at 40%, compared to better marks he received on immigration. That’s especially telling on this day of reciprocal tariffs as his trade war is unpopular.
By the way, Musk may be new to politics, but he violated a key rule of it — never put anything on your head you don’t normally wear, even Trump, who likes a good hat, knows about that one.
The Democrat Party is Fighting Left versus Center: The Case of Waltz’s Senate District Elections in 2024 and the Republican Campaign in Wisconsin
An easy — and somewhat lazy — framing of the internal battle within the Democratic Party is “progressive vs. moderate.” Many in the party agree on the issues, with an exception on when to push for something or not.
The Democratic base was angry when the Senate leader Chuck Schumer allowed the spending bill to pass to keep the government open. It’s also why so many on the left liked Sen. Cory Booker holding the floor of the Senate with an anti-Trump speech. The record for the longest speeches in the house was held by Strom Thurmond, who was a racist South Carolina senator. Booker said he was aware of the fact that Thurmond was a racist.
“I don’t think that the most meaningful distinction within Democrats now is left versus center,” state party chair Ben Wikler said in MSNBC’s Morning Joe. It’s going on your foot, fighting back, versus rolling over and playing dead.
He noted that Crawford was against an abortion ban at the court, that Underly was against the dismantling of the Department of Education, and that Musk was against a check and balance.
“Progressives, centrists, and everyone in between hold these broadly,” Wickler said. The most important thing is to fight. The Democratic Party, the anti-MAGA coalition, you’re going to see a lot of success because it is to be ubiquitous, to travel everywhere, to communicate, and to make the case to voters. That’s what voters are looking for right now.”
In Florida, the 6th congressional district election for Waltz’s seat — the one Trump and the GOP were most concerned about — would have been in the top 20 for most spending by a single candidate for any House race the entire 2024 cycle, and that was over 20 months. This was two. The Democrat raised about $10 million in that time and spent more than $8 million, while the Republican spent less than $1 million, as of the candidates’ March 12 filings.
It was not bad. In both states it was lower in those kinds of races than it was in presidential elections. In Wisconsin, roughly 2.4 million ballots were cast (with 95% in), about 30% less than in November. In Florida, there were only 200,000 voters who went to the polls. In 2024, it was more than double that. Money isn’t everything.
The importance of firing up the bases is well-known in off-year elections, as well as the realignment of college-educated voters, who have higher turnout rates towards Democrats, is helping them in these kinds of elections.
A Pew poll last year found 81% in favor of requiring people to show government-issued photo ID to vote. That included 69% of Democrats. Few things get that sort of bipartisan support.
So, yes, Democrats can take Tuesday as one of the first bits of good news they’ve had since the 2024 presidential election. They must be aware that there are still some center-right issues such as voter ID and immigration that need to be dealt with, even though the party’s favorability is low.