All eyes on Wisconsin tonight

The results of a state Supreme Court race that Elon Musk spent $20 million to buy is actually going to tell us a lot about the fate of "the resistance," and my stomach is in knots.

Hello Cappers. We somehow made it to April. I considered writing a long earnest post today titled “8 DOGE Cuts That We Should All Actually Get Behind” as an April Fools gag, but I couldn’t stomach the idea that even one person wouldn’t get that it was a joke, and I don’t think many of us are really in an April Fools kinda mood this year anyway. You’re welcome!

Speaking of things I can’t stomach, Wisconsin voters took to the polls today in a crucial state Supreme Court race that Elon Musk has straight-up attempted to purchase. Musk poured $20 million in for right-wing candidate Brad Schimel, who’s running against liberal Susan Crawford to fill a vacancy that will determine whether conservatives or liberals control the court. On the line in this race are abortion rights, collective bargaining rights, and Wisconsin’s heavily gerrymandered districts, as well as the fate of a big Tesla lawsuit against the state (of course!) over whether it can open its own dealerships there.

The election is also widely considered to be the first big public referendum on Musk and Trump’s first ten weeks of leadership, which have already destroyed the economy, public health, scientific research, and our global good standing, in addition to disappearing hundreds of men to a gulag in El Salvador without due process. For this reason, in addition to his own financial incentives, Musk seems particularly obsessed with winning this random down ballot judicial election. This weekend, he actually flew to Wisconsin and debased himself in a cheese hat on stage to campaign for Schimel, posting dramatically on X, "A Supreme Court election in Wisconsin might determine the fate of America."

Musk also did one of his highly illegal “lottery” schemes where he offered million-dollar checks to voters and pretended that they’d be given out at random to unsuspecting Wisconsinites. "I will also personally hand over two checks for a million dollars each in appreciation for you taking the time to vote,” he posted on X. “This is super important."

Elon deleted the post after his own AI bot, Grok, called him out for violating Wisconsin’s anti-bribery law.

Musk did go ahead with delivering the million-dollar checks, of course. But as expected, the two recipients both ended up being Republican operatives—just like what happened with his second amendment petition “voter sweepstakes” in Pennsylvania during the general election.

With all that said, I actually don’t have a clue who is going to win tonight. Wisconsin is super polarized: Trump won by less than one percentage point there in November, and Democrats tend to outperform Republicans there in these little down ballot elections. The last Democratic-backed candidate for Supreme Court, for instance, won the most recent election in 2023 by 11 points.

At the same time, this has become the most expensive judicial race in American history ($90M spent in total), and Musk is obviously playing dirty. In addition to him bribing Schimel voters to get out to the polls, a Musk-backed group has been running fake ads in support of Crawford that claim she wants to give criminals “second chances” instead of incarcerating them.

But if other elections in red and purple states the past month have been any indication, Trump and Musk’s agenda is actually super unpopular among normal people, and voters are inclined to signal their disapproval loudly right now. A Democrat flipped a state Senate seat in a Republican stronghold district in Amish country Pennsylvania last week. Louisiana voters just resoundingly rejected all four constitutional amendments championed by Republican Gov. Jeff Landry in a huge win for the “No to them all, y’all” campaign (which I adore). And Trump just rescinded his promotion for Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY) to UN Ambassador because he’s scared that a Democrat might actually flip that seat in a special election, threatening Republicans’ House majority at a time when he really needs it to carry out his slash-and-burn of the government.

As of me writing this post, it looks like turnout is pretty huge today in Wisconsin. There are DJs at the polls. And nothing would make me happier than Elon Musk having spent $20 million and worn a cheese hat only to be told that Americans actually hate his Nazi guts.

Back to holding my breath.