US President Donald Trump faced, on Tuesday, April 1, a first electoral setback with the election of a Democrat judge in Wisconsin, an election usually of local magnitude, this time marked by the strong involvement of Elon Musk. Susan Crawford, supported by the Democrats, won a siege at the Supreme Court of this State in the Great Lakes Region for ten years, according to projections of several American media. She was facing Brad Schimel, supported by Donald Trump and the multimillionaire Elon Musk, and whose victory would have changed the high instance of the Wisconsin on the conservative side.
People “do not realize how important it is”, launched Elon Musk on Sunday during a support meeting for Brad Schimel in the north of Wisconsin. “They say they are a kind of judicial thing that is not important ‘but in reality, what is happening on Tuesday is a vote to know which party controls the House of Representatives,” he added. The multimillionaire was thus concerned with a potential rebalanced by the local Supreme Court in the division of electoral districts, in favor of the Democrats.
Pivotal state, Wisconsin was won by Donald Trump in November. “This is one of these strange situations where an apparently small election could determine the fate of Western civilization,” also launched Elon Musk on Tuesday, during a discussion on his social network X. The republican president also split on his Truth Social platform on Monday of a message of support for Brad Schimel. He mainly attacked Susan Crawford, who, according to him, would be “a desaster for Wisconsin and for the United States of America”.
First trials of the Trump administration
In just over two months, the republican billionaire has already set the tone for an all -round presidency. In addition to the dismantling of vast sides of the federal state under the aegis of Elon Musk and his Doge commission, Donald Trump has signed a hundred decrees, ranging from the repression of immigration to the repeal of diversity policies, including a radical reversal in the fight of the United States against global warming.
If opinion investigations give a relative decline in the president’s popularity, this election in Wisconsin, but also two partial legislative elections in Florida in constituencies solidly anchored on the right, and which will remain in the bag of the Republicans according to the projections of several media, are the first real tests in the ballot boxes in which Donald Trump has been facing Donald Trump.
In Florida, the Republicans worried about surveys that showed a tighter race than expected in one of the constituencies, when it had been won with more than 30 points apart in November. Trumpist Randy Fine won the headquarters on Tuesday in the House of Representatives against Democrat Josh Weil, but with a much leaner advance than a few months ago.
Elon Musk accused of wanting to “buy a seat at the Supreme Wisconsin Court”
In Wisconsin, the two camps have released heavy artillery for an election which, usually, passes unnoticed in the rest of the country. According to the Brennan Center of New York University, it is “the most expensive judicial election in American history”, with more than $ 98 million spilled in the campaign, including 53 million in favor of the conservative candidate.
Elon Musk is no stranger to this. “He spent more than $ 25 million to try to help but sit at the Supreme Wisconsin Court,” Susan Crawford launched on Sunday in a rally in Elkhorn, in the south of the state. His campaign team had already recently accused Elon Musk of wanting to “buy a headquarters at the Supreme Court of Wisconsin in order to obtain a favorable decision” in proceedings initiated by Tesla, her electric vehicle company, against the authorities of Wisconsin.