Bulwark Takes - Huge Blow to Elon as Liberal Wins Big in Swing State Supreme Court Race

Episode Date: April 2, 2025

JVL, Will Saletan and Lauren Egan react to the liberal state Supreme Court win in Wisconsin, despite Elon Musk injecting millions of dollars into the race.

Hello, everyone. It is special election night. I'm JVL from the Bulwark here with my colleagues Lauren Egan and Will Salatan, and we have a result in the Wisconsin Spring Supreme Court election, an election so important that Elon Musk said that it was the fate of Western civilization hung on it, and Dave Wasserman has seen enough. Susan Crawford, the Democrat, has defeated Brad Schimel. And it seems like it is a little bit closer than you might have expected because the result down in the special election in Florida had a monstrous swing from 2024 with Trump. I think, Lauren, how big did that district swing? The Republicans still won, but much closer. Yeah, it was like a Trump plus

Trump won that by like 30 points. Yeah. So anything, you know, within striking distance. And the Democrat, I think, was finished minus eight, minus seven. Yeah. Which is, yeah. You know, if you're Republicans right now, you're terrified. Yeah. That is bad. And what we have, what is interesting about the Wisconsin Supreme Court election is it's closer. Crawford, we think Crawford looks like Crawford's going to win by five or seven points, maybe. I don't know. It's still early counting, but she's going to win. But this is a place where Republicans threw in everything plus the kitchen sink.

Elon Musk has been barnstorming, handing out giant publishers clearinghouse size checks. And even today, one of his packs was offering people, I got to pull this up, was offering people $50 for taking a picture of themselves voting outside of a location. I mean, you know, I'm sure all of this is totally legal. So Lauren, let me just go to you first. What do you, what do you make of this result? Surprised? Not surprised? What, what is this? How does this make you feel? Well, I think the Wisconsin one was truly, we didn't know how it was going to go. That was, that was going to be pretty close. Beforehand, Democrats were pretty confident. Um, but they

were still saying, look, anything could happen. Um, so yeah, if you're a Democrat tonight, you're feeling pretty good. Republicans, everyone in the White House has to be looking at elections tonight and being pretty anxious. These aren't good signs for them. You know, obviously, the Florida was, the Democrat didn't win, but that's as close as you can possibly hope for in a district like that. I mean, this is, you know, aside from like Doug Jones, his unprecedented win in Alabama a few years ago, like this is kind of up there for an area that's like ruby red, deep South type of congressional seat. I think what this means for Democrats is that they can play in just about any congressional seat where Trump was plus seven, maybe even plus 10. That's in play now. And for Republicans, it's going to be interesting to see,

I think, how they respond to this tonight and tomorrow. I mean, does leadership on the Hill for Republicans look at this and say, oh, shit, maybe we should change some things up if we don't want to, you know, completely get demolished for the midterms. We know that they've had kind of a hard time doing some of that and standing up to Trump and maybe course correcting. So we'll have to see what they say tomorrow and how they try to spin this and frame it. Before I get to you, Will, Lauren, this is why Elise Stefanik is not leaving her job, right? Totally. This under these results suggest that her district, which is kind of swinging. I mean, it's a Republican district,

but there's I think if a special election had to be held there, you know, that was obviously an early sign and early tell a few days ago when they pulled when she, you know, that was obviously an early sign, an early tell a few days ago when they pulled, when she, you know, backed out, that they knew that they couldn't risk that, which just says a lot if, you know, someone like her is kind of a little anxious about making sure that they keep that seat. Will, is it too much to hope that this could be seen as a repudiation of Elon Musk and oligarchical politics? No, it's not too much to hope that. Don't be sarcastic with me. I'm persistent on hope. I never expect to hear the word hope from you, JVL. So I'm just like, I adore it. I'm very happy that you're using that word. I'm going to leave the pony on the shelf because these margins tonight are not as what I had hoped. They're better, as Lauren said.

Good Lord, what were you hoping for? You know, there was talk. Look, for Tony Fabrizio, there was talk that Tony Fabrizio had a poll that showed that Randy Fine was down three points. That is an Ann Seltzer level gap from the results that we're seeing. So like, I think that got people's hopes up. I dying to ask Lauren whether she thinks that poll is even on the level or whether that was like some version of the poll that they deliberately leaked to scare Republicans hopes up. I'm dying to ask Lauren whether she thinks that poll is even on the level or whether that was like some version of the poll that they deliberately leaked to scare Republicans into turning out. Yeah, I think that that seems like there was some strategy, strategical leak on that side, because everyone, you know, at the DNC, you talk to Democrats, they're like, none of them

thought that this was really they had a chance at winning. They were trying to like be good sports and be like, we're going to go down there and knock doors. But like this isn't happening. So, yeah, I. So so those margins know more about. Yeah, yeah. I'm dying to know. So so these margins are the Florida seats, as Lauren was saying, that's these are 30 point Republican districts, 30 point margin, the Gates ones, even more like 35 or more. They end up being about 15 points each. I'm just looking at the latest numbers that I saw in the vicinity of 50. So that's like a 15 point gap from, you know, increase for Democrats, relatively speaking from. Yeah, I think I think the exact one is the it was Trump plus 26. And then this is an 18 point swing.

Okay. Okay, cool. So that puts, that would have put the Stefanik seat right on the edge, I think. So the, the, and by the way, I have to see, I want to get one pun in tonight, if you'll let me, which was that Jimmy Patronus was like, it was kind of a given that he was going to win that, that gate seat. So I was kind of in expecto Patronus mode. I'm just going to set that aside.

Sorry. Oh, oh, well. So anyway, those seats, we're probably just going to win them. I want to come back to Lauren's point about what the Hill leadership is going to take from this, because I think that's the key thing. If you're a Democrat and you're any person who's been angry about Trump and Musk, and you're like, what the hell can I do about this onslaught, right? Well, the people in these states and these districts did something. They had something they could do, which was to vote, but they could only affect those seats. But the larger effect is the one that Lauren's talking

about. What is the effect on the psychology of Republicans in Congress? Do they get scared by, are these results enough to scare them to take some of the momentum out of the Trump-Musk agenda on the Hill? That's kind of the key question to me. And I don't know what the answer to that is yet. Is this a, I mean, I expect that we're going to get some ketamine-fueled rage tweets tonight from Musk, although maybe not. Fingers crossed. Because

he really, I mean, he pushed all in on this. He kept going there and doing his video things. I mean, he even jumped up and showed the belly, I think, right? Unfortunately. Can we just be happy that the people in Wisconsin were not interested in that even though he went to

literally give away money which by the way is that a thing he's going to be allowed to do in all elections going forward is that cool now apparently I mean this was like messy because you know the Wisconsin legal system

didn't want to get you, it was just like all uncomfortable. But look, I think, you know, Republicans in some ways, Trump has an out here. He can he can throw Musk under the bus and view this. This was totally a referendum on Musk. He got himself so involved in this race that it was hard to it's just like hard to not read it as that. Like that's what this was. So, you know, I think we've all been a little bit surprised by how, you know, Trump usually gets tired of people, especially people that like the limelight. That hasn't happened with musk which has surprised me um ding ding ding lauren this is what i was gonna ask you next yeah and you know he hasn't out um

to say i'll blame you know kind of not a great night for republicans um blame it on musk and say and get rid of him and but like uh you know, that's probably that probably is a bit wishful thinking so far because he's he's held on to him pretty closely. Well, is it possible that Trump feels like he has to pump the brakes on Doge and Musk and throw him overboard? I mean, Doge stuff seems to be not very popular. Yeah, especially after. Yeah, Doge stuff, definitely not super popular. I would be, I'm interested to know sort of what the conversation is in the White House

tonight and going into tomorrow morning, because it's hard to not read. That's what this was, right? That's what this was. And if people in the Republican Party are coming to Trump and saying, do you want to hold on to majorities next November? If you want any shot at that, throw this guy under the bus, cool it on some of the Doge stuff, and let's try and find a path forward for this. It's only been two months. What if Doge keeps going for another few months? You know, where does that leave the White House then?

On the Doge stuff, so specifically in the Florida races, the Democrats were banking on Social Security and veteran stuff, right? And then Doge was explicitly going at the VA, messing with Social Security administration while Trump is swearing he won't cut Social Security. So I don't know enough yet about the results to know how well those attacks worked from the Democrats. They obviously made up some ground, but maybe it could have been more. In Wisconsin, JBL, you asked about the Musk effect. And my question is, which Musk effect? Because he's got multiple effects going on. So one is just the sheer money that he put in. I mean, this is an insane situation in which a guy who is facing legislation, possible court rulings by the Wisconsin Supreme Court related to whether he can have dealerships in Wisconsin, like massive conflict of interest is pouring, he poured literally, what was it, more than $20 million into a state, into what is nominally a judicial election, nominally a nonpartisan, to not, to elect what everyone knows is the Republican candidate, who will then, as a judge, decide

whether- Oh, no, I'm sure Brad would have recused himself. But that court is then supposed to rule on district maps. You know, like there's like it's there is no every part of this is partisan, every aspect of it. And it's encompassed judiciary. And that's really alarming. But so Musk pours this money in and he hopes that will have an effect to elect his people. And it looks like tonight it did not help the Republicans enough. But the other Musk effect is the one you're and make himself such an easy target as a person, I think probably outweighed the money that he put in. And that is going to be the crucial thing, which of those Musk effects prevailed. Yeah. I mean, fingers crossed. Elon does not seem like

the kind of guy who can be super strategic and decide that he will be seen but not heard. You know, like, I don't get the sense he's the kind of guy who could be told, you just stroke the check, but maybe don't show up or talk. He likes being the main character. Totally. Totally. Yeah. Yeah.

And I think it's a problem for them as long as it's so transparent like Wisconsin was. It was just so obvious that he was just trying to almost buy this election. And I think voters there, I mean, a lot of the reporting on the ground, reporting from Wisconsin does show that that's something that voters rubbed them, understandably really rubbed them the wrong way um so yeah what is the the republican party has a musk problem because they want that money but if part of the deal is that musk wants to show up and be on the stage and put the cheese hat on and whatever um to your point will like, does that just counteract and end up in a worse spot for them?

Yeah. I mean, to put it politely, Musk's talent as a political persona, setting aside whether he can engineer, get out the vote in Pennsylvania. But as a person, his decision making about showing up and the way he talks could best be described as neurodivergent. I mean, this is not the guy you want to like be a candidate. So I think he's, I think he made himself a very easy target. The other thing I wanted to say about this is the, in the Wisconsin state Supreme Court race, one of the ads that the Republicans ran against the nominally Democratic judge was they had, they showed, I think it was Boasberg, the judge who's ruled against Trump on deportations.

And they said, a liberal judge is trying to stop President Trump from doing his deportation agenda. Don't elect Susan Crawford. Don't elect another liberal judge. And the reason why this scares me is if we have the politicization of the judiciary to the point, you know, the judges are elected and if those elections can be won by voters being marshaled by people like Elon Musk and Donald Trump to throw out so-called liberal judges who do so-called liberal judges who do so-called liberal things like enforce the law against the president, draw constitutional

boundaries against the president, then what we have is the collapse of the rule of law. So I'm very concerned about that in Wisconsin. And if that was avoided, that was a very important step in protecting the rule of law in this country. Look at that. Good news. Twice in one night. Let's leave it there. Guys, hit like, hit subscribe, follow the channel, stay with us at The Bulwark. We're going to be coming at you with more of it tomorrow. Maybe even some more good news tomorrow. Good luck, America.