A billionaire, now a White House official rather than a private citizen, spends millions of dollars to elect a conservative judge and becomes the main character in the race.
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After throwing his financial weight behind Donald Trump last year, Elon Musk is once again sending an army of campaigners to Wisconsin, this time in support of a conservative candidate for state Supreme Court justice.
A lot has changed since Elon Musk last tried to win the Wisconsin election.
Five months ago, his running mate was Donald J. Trump. Mr. Musk was not in the White House. It was unclear whether the Department of Government Efficiency was more than a meme. Mr. Musk had failed to make a political impact, taking advantage of new campaign finance rules to deploy an army of canvassers who could knock on Wisconsin’s doors millions of times. Mr. Trump ended up winning the state by about 30,000 votes.
This spring, Mr. Musk is returning to the Badger State playbook — in a very different political world.
Mr. Musk’s choice is a rising state Supreme Court nominee, Brad Schimel, whom the billionaire barely knows. Mr. Musk has become a national political hero as a White House super-aide. Now he is subject to its ethics rules while pouring millions of dollars into pro-Trump causes. And Democrats are turning against him and his efforts to destroy the government in the April 1 election.
If Mr. Musk succeeds, conservatives would reclaim their 4-3 majority on the court and have the power to shift the contentious state to the right on issues such as abortion rights, labor rights and congressional maps. In a sign of the importance of the race to conservatives, Mr. Trump endorsed Judge Schimel on Friday night.
ImageLiterature from Mr Musk's campaign promises that Brad Schimel, a conservative judicial nominee, will vote to “move President Trump's agenda forward.” Credit… Vincent Alban for The New York Times
Former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, said in an interview that “Musk saw the benefit of running in Wisconsin” in 2024.
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