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      In Crucial Judicial Race in Wisconsin, G.O.P. Now Has a Financial Edge

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      Two years ago, Democratic money carried a liberal jurist to victory and swung the state’s high court to the left. Now, Elon Musk and other wealthy donors have given Republicans a chance to swing it back.The last time Wisconsin held an election for the state’s Supreme Court, Republicans cried foul over the wave of money from out-of-state Democrats that overwhelmed their candidate.Two years later, Republicans have learned their lesson. It is Democrats who are grappling with a flood of outside money inundating Wisconsin.A super PAC funded by Elon Musk has in just the past week spent $2.3 million on text messages, digital advertisements and paid canvassers to remind Wisconsin Republicans about the April 1 election, which pits Brad Schimel, a judge in Waukesha County and a former Republican state attorney general, against Susan Crawford, a Dane County judge who represented Planned Parenthood and other liberal causes in her private practice.The spending by Mr. Musk, the tech billionaire who is leading President Trump’s project to eviscerate large segments of the federal government, comes as Judge Schimel and his Republican allies have spent more money on television ads than Judge Crawford and Democrats have — a remarkable turnaround in a state where Democrats have had a significant financial advantage in recent years.“When I was a little girl growing up in Chippewa Falls, I never could have imagined that I’d be fighting the world’s richest man,” Judge Crawford told a crowd over the weekend at a campaign stop in Cambridge, Wis.As of Monday, Republicans had spent or reserved $13.9 million of television advertising time for the Wisconsin court race, compared with $10.7 million for Democrats, according to AdImpact, a media-tracking firm. Because a larger chunk of Republican spending comes from super PACs, which pay a higher rate for TV ads than candidates do, the amount of advertising on Wisconsin’s airwaves has remained roughly equal. But the heavy Republican spending has eliminated what was a significant advantage for Democrats in the last such contest, in 2023.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Musk and His Millions Enter Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

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      Elon Musk’s super PAC has spent $1 million on canvassing operations supporting the conservative candidate in the race, his first election spending after the 2024 campaign.Elon Musk’s super PAC is back.Mr. Musk, the country’s largest donor during the 2024 election, is returning to campaigns by funding a new effort to help elect Brad Schimel, the conservative candidate for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. It is Mr. Musk’s first public political spending after Election Day.America PAC spent $1 million on canvassing operations in the state, according to a new campaign finance filing that became public Thursday. Pamphlets distributed to some Wisconsin homes read, “President Trump needs you to get out and vote,” and included a link to a website where voters could register to vote and learn about how to cast ballots early.A nonprofit organization that has historically been backed by Mr. Musk, Building America’s Future, this week began a $1.6 million-and-counting television campaign to bolster Judge Schimel, a former state attorney general who is now a judge in Waukesha County. But that group has other major donors and is not as directly tied to Mr. Musk as is America PAC, which is funded almost entirely by the billionaire.Wisconsin Supreme Court elections are officially nonpartisan, but Judge Schimel has been endorsed by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, which is allowed by state campaign finance law to transfer unlimited sums to his campaign. The liberal candidate, Susan Crawford, has been endorsed by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Judge Crawford sits on a court in Dane County, Wisconsin’s most Democratic county, which includes Madison.The April 1 election for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court carries higher stakes than any election this year until the November contests for governor of New Jersey and Virginia. There is now a four-to-three liberal majority on the court, but Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, a liberal who has sat on the court since 1995, is retiring, putting the court’s majority on the ballot.The state’s abortion laws, as well as its legislative and congressional district lines, are likely to be determined by whichever faction controls the state high court in coming months.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Education Primary Election Results 2025

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      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press.By The New York Times election results team: Michael Andre, Emma Baker, Neil Berg, Andrew Chavez, Michael Beswetherick, Matthew Bloch, Lily Boyce, Irineo Cabreros, Nico Chilla, Nate Cohn, Alastair Coote, Annie Daniel, Saurabh Datar, Leo Dominguez, Tiff Fehr, Andrew Fischer, Martín González Gómez, Joyce Ho, Will Houp, Jon Huang, Junghye Kim, K.K. Rebecca Lai, Jasmine C. Lee, Joey K. Lee, Vivian Li, Alex Lemonides, Ilana Marcus, Alicia Parlapiano, Jaymin Patel, Dan Simmons-Ritchie, Charlie Smart, Jonah Smith, Urvashi Uberoy, Isaac White and Christine Zhang
      Source: Election results and race calls are from The Associated Press. More

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      Supreme Court to Hear Catholic Charity’s Bid for Tax Exemption

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      The justices agreed to hear an appeal from a Wisconsin Supreme Court ruling that the charity’s activities were insufficiently religious to qualify.The Supreme Court agreed on Friday to decide whether Wisconsin was free to deny a tax exemption to a Catholic charity on the grounds that its activities were not primarily religious.The court has been notably receptive to arguments from religious groups, and the new case will give the justices another opportunity to explore the limits of the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberty.The case concerns a Wisconsin law that exempts religious groups from state unemployment taxes so long as they are “operated primarily for religious purposes.”Catholic Charities Bureau, the social ministry of the Catholic Diocese in Superior, Wis., has said its mission is to provide “services to the poor and disadvantaged as an expression of the social ministry of the Catholic Church.” State officials determined that the charity did not qualify for the exemption because it “provides essentially secular services and engages in activities that are not religious per se.”The Wisconsin Supreme Court said it accepted the charity’s contention that its services were “based on Gospel values and the principles of the Catholic social teachings.” But the court ruled that the group’s activities were “primarily charitable and secular” and did not “attempt to imbue program participants with the Catholic faith nor supply any religious materials to program participants or employees.”The court added that “both employment with the organizations and services offered by the organizations are open to all participants regardless of religion.”We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Wisconsin files more charges against Trump allies who led ‘fake electors’ plot

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      Wisconsin’s justice department filed 10 additional charges on Tuesday against three Donald Trump allies who spearheaded the “fake electors” scheme to help the president-elect in his efforts to overturn the 2020 election.The three men, Kenneth Chesebro, Michael Roman and James Troupis, already faced felony forgery charges in June for their role in the plot. The additional charges include conspiracy to commit a crime and numerous counts of fraud.In Wisconsin, the individual false electors have faced civil penalties and agreed to never serve as electors while Trump is on the ballot and to issue a public statement acknowledging that their votes had been cast in an attempt to disrupt Joe Biden’s 2020 victory.Republicans submitted false slates of electors in seven swing states, but only some have faced civil and criminal penalties.Unlike in Michigan, Georgia and Arizona, where electors were charged with crimes for participating in the false elector scheme, Wisconsin’s false electors have not faced criminal charges. Instead, the state has hit the architects of the scheme with the most serious penalties.According to the complaint and documents released previously in civil court, Chesebro led the effort, circulating a memo titled “The Real Deadline for Settling a State’s Electoral Votes”, which made the case for Trump’s electors to submit false electoral certificates – despite the fact that Trump did not win the election.The complaint lays out how Chesebro and Troupis, both attorneys, coordinated with Roman, a Trump aide, to establish the plot in states across the country. It notes that while in some states, the false electors submitted qualifying language in their certificates to indicate that they had submitted their names in case Trump was ultimately declared the winner of the election, Wisconsin’s electors included no such language.Troupis, Roman and Chesebro have faced prosecution for their involvement in the 2020 false elector schemes in other states including Arizona and Georgia, where Chesebro pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit filing false documents. Troupis continued to serve on a Wisconsin judicial ethics panel following the false elector episode and was only suspended from his role in June, when he was first charged with felony forgery in connection with the plot. More

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      Wisconsin’s Ben Wikler joins race for Democratic National Committee chair

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      Wisconsin Democratic leader Ben Wikler joined the race to lead the Democratic National Committee on Sunday, promising “to take on Trump, Republican extremists, and move our country forward”, as the party looks to rebuild from its losses in the November election.In a video posted on social networks, Wikler, 43, touted his state party’s success in organizing to flip 14 state legislative seats and send Senator Tammy Baldwin back to Washington DC in November, and in previously campaigns to win control of the state supreme court and re-elect governor Tony Evers. Wikler, a former podcaster, Air America radio producer and headline writer for The Onion, also stressed his new media expertise.Wikler who has been involved in Democratic party politics since age 11, previously served as a producer on comedian-turned-politician Al Franken’s radio show and as Washington director for the progressive action group MoveOn, where he played a role in the successful battle to save the Affordable Care Act.“Our values – the core belief that our economy should work for working people, and that every person has inherent dignity and deserves freedom and respect – are American values,” Willer wrote on Bluesky. “But they’re not MAGA values. The richest and most powerful people want to divide us and enrich themselves.”“We’ve got to make sure that we are reaching people with the message that we are on their side and fighting for them,” Wikler told Reuters in a telephone interview.Wikler, who has served as chair of the Democratic party of Wisconsin since 2019, is among several candidates looking to replace Jaime Harrison, the current chair who is not seeking re-election when the party votes early next year.Former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley, Minnesota Democratic chief Ken Martin and New York state senator James Skoufis also are vying to become the new Democratic chair.Democrats are trying to chart the way forward after losing the White House and control of the Senate, as well as failing to retake the House of Representatives.Wikler said the national party could learn from organizing efforts he has overseen in Wisconsin, even though Kamala Harris narrowly lost the state to Trump.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionWikler said Democrats also need to focus on the president-elect’s economic agenda, which he claimed will favor wealthy Americans rather than working families.“For Democrats, this is a critical time to unite and fight back against Trump’s plans,” Wikler said.Wikler’s entry into the race was welcomed by the teachers union leader Randi Weingarten, who wrote that he “understands how to organize and communicate”, and journalist Connie Schultz, who knows Wikler from his time as spokesperson for her husband, Senator Sherrod Brown. More

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      Wisconsin Democratic Chair Says He Is the One to Revive a Distressed Party

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      Ben Wikler, who has led the Wisconsin Democratic Party since 2019, announced a bid to be national party chair with a platform to “unite, fight, win.”Ben Wikler, the Wisconsin Democratic chairman and a prolific party fund-raiser with deep connections in Washington, announced on Sunday that he was entering the race to lead the Democratic National Committee.Mr. Wikler, 43, has led Wisconsin Democrats since 2019, and he has served as a top official at MoveOn, the progressive advocacy group. He said in an interview that he aimed to do for the national party what he did in Wisconsin, where he presided over the rebuilding of a party weakened by years of full Republican control of the state’s government.Mr. Wikler, whose start in politics came in part as a research assistant for Al Franken, joins a field of party-chair hopefuls that includes Ken Martin, the Minnesota Democratic chairman; Martin O’Malley, the former Maryland governor; and James Skoufis, a little-known New York state senator. While Mr. Martin has said he has endorsements from 83 of the 448 voting members of the D.N.C. (and Mr. O’Malley has said he has endorsements from three, and Mr. Skoufis does not have any), Mr. Wikler would not say his level of support when asked.That was not the only question Mr. Wikler declined to answer in an interview this weekend. He would also not say which state he thinks should vote first in the 2028 presidential primary or whether President Biden should have sought re-election.“My platform in this race is unite, fight, win,” Mr. Wikler said. “Uniting starts not with recriminations but with reckoning and with curiosity and data. And then you use all that to inform the way that you fight the next battle.”Jaime Harrison, the departing party chairman, is not seeking re-election. Others considering entering the race include former Representative Max Rose of New York; Chuck Rocha, a strategist who worked on Bernie Sanders’s presidential campaign in 2020; and Mallory McMorrow, a Michigan state legislator. Mr. Harrison has scheduled the meeting for the vote to replace him for Feb. 1 in Oxon Hill, Md.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Reasons for hope as Democrats prevent Trump-led red wave in state races

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      After watching Kamala Harris lose the White House and Republicans wrest back full control of Congress, Democrats were bracing for disaster in state legislatures. With the party defending narrow majorities in several chambers across the country, some Democrats expected that Donald Trump’s victory in the presidential race would allow a red wave to sweep through state legislatures.Yet, when the dust had settled after election day, the results of state legislative elections presented a much more nuanced picture than Democrats had feared.To their disappointment, Democrats failed to gain ground in Arizona and New Hampshire, where Republicans expanded their legislative majorities, and they lost governing trifectas in Michigan and Minnesota.But other states delivered reason for hope. Democrats held on to a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania house even as Harris and congressional incumbents struggled across the state. In North Carolina, Democrats brought an end to Republicans’ legislative supermajority, restoring Governor-elect Josh Stein’s veto power. Perhaps most encouragingly for the party, Democrats made substantial gains in Wisconsin, where newly redrawn and much more competitive maps left the party well-poised to gain majorities in 2026.The mixed results could help Democrats push back against Republicans’ federal policies at the state level, and they offer potential insight on the party’s best electoral strategies as they prepare for the new Trump era.“We must pay attention to what’s going on in our backyard with the same level of enthusiasm that we do to what’s happening in the White House,” said Heather Williams, the president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee (DLCC). “And I feel like that’s never been more true.”The implications of the state legislative elections will be sweeping, Williams said. Democratic legislators have already helped protect abortion access in their states following the overturning of Roe v Wade, and with Republicans overseeing the federal budget, state legislatures could play a pivotal role in funding critical and underresourced services for their constituents.Those high stakes have made Democrats increasingly aware of the importance of state legislatures, where Republicans have held a significant advantage in recent years. In 2016, when Trump first won office, Republicans held 68 legislative chambers compared with Democrats’ 29, according to the DLCC. Following the elections this month, Democrats expect to control 39 chambers, down from 41 before the elections but still a notable improvement since the beginning of Trump’s first term.As Democrats have turned more of their attention to state legislative races, outside groups have joined the fight. The States Project, a Democratic-aligned organization, poured $70m into legislative elections this cycle, while the Super Pac Forward Majority devoted another $45m to the effort. The funding provided a substantial boon beyond the resources of the DLCC, the party’s official state legislative campaign arm that set a spending goal of $60m this cycle.View image in fullscreen“It’s not rocket science that dollars, tactics and message are potent ways to communicate with voters,” said Daniel Squadron, co-founder of the States Project. “We provide the dollars to candidates that let them get off the phones, separate themselves from in-state special interests and allow them to talk to voters and to treat these campaigns like the big-league contests they are.”Historically, Democratic state legislative candidates have trailed several points behind the party’s presidential nominee, but early data suggests legislative candidates actually outperformed Harris in some key districts. Squadron believes face-to-face interactions with voters, as well as the high quality of many Democratic state legislative candidates this cycle, helped stave off larger losses down ballot even as the party suffered in federal races.“That is the only way it was possible to hold the Pennsylvania house when the statewide results were so disappointing. It’s the reason the North Carolina house supermajority was broken,” Squadron said.Democrats’ strategies appear to have proved particularly potent in Wisconsin, where the party picked up 10 seats in the state assembly and four seats in the state senate. Andrew Whitley, executive director of the Wisconsin senate Democratic caucus, credited the wins to savvy candidates who combined a message about the importance of abortion access with hyperlocal issues important in their specific districts. The strategy allowed candidates to outperform Harris and/or Senator Tammy Baldwin in four out of five targeted senate races, according to data provided by Whitley.“It’s very rare when you have bottom-of-the-ticket state legislators over-perform Kamala and Senator Baldwin,” Whitley said. “They worked their asses off.”In senate district 14, which stretches north-west from Madison, Democrat Sarah Keyeski appears to have benefited from some of Trump’s supporters failing to vote down ballot for the Republican incumbent, Joan Ballweg. But in senate district 8 in the Milwaukee suburbs and district 30 in Green Bay, a small yet decisive number of voters split their ticket between Trump and Democratic legislative candidates.The results suggest that Trump’s playbook may not be enough to elevate Republican state legislators to victory, presenting an opening for Democrats in future election cycles. As further evidence of that trend, Democrats managed to hold four Senate seats in states that Trump carried on election day.“The Maga [‘Make America Great Again’] playbook doesn’t work at the state legislative level,” said Leslie Martes, chief strategy officer of Forward Majority. “Trump is Trump, and he’s incredibly masterful at what he does, but as we see time after time, Republicans struggle to duplicate it.”The next big test for Republicans will come next year in Virginia, where Democrats hope to flip the governor’s mansion and maintain control of both legislative chambers.“This will be Trump’s first task after this election, to see if he can push that playbook,” Martes said. “He’ll want that to keep his mandate going.”Williams and her team are already gearing up for 2025 and 2026, when Democrats will have another chance to expand their power in states like Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Although the 2026 target map is still taking shape, Williams predicted it would look quite similar to this year’s map.“I feel like we can all kind of expect to see some of those familiar faces back,” she said. “They are really competitive states, and that is where we are going to be focusing our attention.”Even though Democrats remain in the legislative minority in Wisconsin, Whitley expressed enthusiasm about the results and the road ahead. This year marked the first time since 2012 that Wisconsin Democrats had the opportunity to run on competitive maps, and they broke Republicans’ iron grip on the legislature.“It’s going to be truly historic,” Whitley said. “Gone are the days where a manufactured majority can override vetoes and pass super-regressive policies. We’re actually going to have some balance, and we’re on the cusp of not only having a balanced legislature, but a trifecta.”Democrats’ performance in Wisconsin may offer a silver lining to party members who are still reeling from the news of Trump’s victory and terrified about the possibilities of his second term in office.“It’s very easy to get lost in that hopelessness,” Whitley said. “But then on the state legislative front, it’s also very easy to be inspired by these folks who are just regular, everyday people, who are standing up for their communities and fighting.” More