Democrats have a new boogeyman in Elon Musk: Takeaways from Tuesday's elections

Tuesday’s elections in Wisconsin and Florida were kind to the favorites but not to billionaire White House adviser Elon Musk. And that result could stick around long after the votes are counted.

State Circuit Judge Susan Crawford won a pivotal election to maintain liberal control of Wisconsin’s Supreme Court despite a big push from Musk and his millions, while two Republican candidates in Florida won special House elections in deep-red districts. But even though their candidates won just one of the three contests on the ballot, it was a good night for Democrats.

They spent heavily to back Crawford, who cruised to victory over Circuit Judge Brad Schimel without much suspense Tuesday night. 

And while Republicans will pad their slim House majority in Washington with two more reinforcements at a critical legislative moment, the Democratic candidates significantly improved on the party’s November performance, raising questions about whether Democrats can keep up that momentum in next year’s midterm elections. 

Here are the key takeaways from Tuesday’s elections, including what they mean for politics and other campaigns this year and next year.

Democrats have a new boogeyman 

Just months after Democrats lost a presidential election while failing to generate strong enough backlash against Donald Trump, it appears they’ve found a new electoral boogeyman in Musk. 

Recent polls have shown Musk’s favorability ratings are lower than Trump’s, both in Wisconsin and nationally, so it makes sense that the pro-Crawford campaign would lean in on Musk in their messaging. And lean in they did — Crawford and Democrats repeatedly evoked him on the stump, and her campaign ran a TV ad accusing him of “trying to buy Schimel a seat on the Supreme Court.” 

Musk went to great lengths to help Schimel. His super PAC spent more than $12.5 million in independent expenditures, Musk donated $3 million to the state Republican Party, his super PAC controversially doled out million-dollar checks to three voters who signed a conservative-leaning petition, he traveled to Wisconsin to campaign in the race’s final days, and he regularly posted about the race on X, his social media platform. 

The focus on Musk is especially notable because Democrats seemed to intentionally avoid highlighting Trump’s endorsement of Schimel — a move strategists in both parties said was coyly designed to avoid overtly juicing turnout among Trump-loving voters in a state he narrowly carried in two of the past three presidential races. 

Democrats and groups backing Crawford didn’t mention Trump’s endorsement of Schimel once in TV ads, choosing instead to go all in on villainizing Musk. (Schimel leaned heavily into Trump’s support, running ads in the final 11 days of the campaign that emphasized his ties to Trump.)

Time will tell whether Democrats can replicate the strategy in races in which Musk isn’t personally playing such a major role or whether his utility as a boogeyman diminishes if he eventually steps away from the White House.

And Musk’s potential liabilities need to be taken in full context — that is, he has shown that his willingness to lend his wealth to politics extends beyond supporting Trump, and his staggering wealth, combined with his unique cult of personality, makes him an important ally for Republicans. Buckle up for an expensive — and loud — 2026 midterm election, with Musk in the middle.

Republicans’ 2024 playbook wasn’t enough in Wisconsin

In the final weeks of the Wisconsin race, Republicans and groups supporting Schimel hammered Crawford with ads over transgender issues (in addition to highlighting endorsements from Trump and Musk).

That move very closely resembled the tack Republicans and Trump used down the homestretch of their successful 2024 campaign against Democrats in Wisconsin and several other swing states.

Each side used ads to paint its opponent as soft on crime, and groups supporting Schimel slammed Crawford in ads over her role in sentencing in specific cases involving convicted sex offenders while they boosted Schimel for his role in delivering tough sentences against criminals.

That strategy closely resembled moves Sen. Ron Johnson and groups supporting him made down the stretch against Democratic challenger Mandela Barnes in the competitive 2022 Senate race in the battleground state.

But Crawford and groups supporting her hit back on crime in ads themselves, in the hope of insulating her from the attacks. 

The pro-Trump playbook did work in the two special elections in Florida’s 1st and 6th Congressional Districts to replace GOP former Reps. Michael Waltz, now Trump’s national security adviser, and Matt Gaetz. Republicans worked to energize their base, looking to boost GOP turnout in the ruby-red districts.

Trump held tele-town halls for both Republican candidates, and outside groups launched ads in the final days of the race reminding voters that they had Trump’s support. And Republicans ultimately averted anything resembling a close call in two solid-red districts. 

State Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis was projected to win the 1st District race by 15 points, and GOP state Sen. Randy Fine was projected to win by 14 points. But their margins were around half as large as Trump’s in November. 

House GOP expands majority

Tuesday’s elections affected more than the world of campaign politics. In Congress, the pair of GOP victories in Florida will give Republican leaders a little more leeway to pass their major priorities, since they will have a 220-213 majority in the House once Fine and Patronis are sworn in.

If every sitting member votes, Republicans can afford to lose three GOP votes and still pass legislation even if all Democrats oppose a measure. (Two Democratic-held seats are vacant.)

Patronis and Fine will head to Congress at a key moment for the GOP, with Republicans trying to piece together a sweeping budget proposal to tackle Trump’s top priorities, including extending his 2017 tax cuts.

Fine has signaled that he will support Trump’s priorities, telling him at last week’s tele-town hall, “I stand behind you 100%, and you’ll have no greater warrior for your agenda than me.”

Patronis is also a Trump ally, though the self-described fiscal conservative told NBC News in January that he could clash with GOP leaders on government spending, saying, “I will not waste people’s money, and I have no problem calling out absurdity.”

Asked in an interview last week whether there were any elements of a possible budget proposal he wouldn’t support, such as cuts to Medicaid, Patronis demurred, saying he hadn’t given much thought to “those type of hypotheticals.” 

“My principles are making sure that we’re either restoring dollars back to the citizens of CD-1, we spend their dollars more efficient,” he said. “I don’t think it’s good to create a path where you’re taking away something from a benefit or entitlement that somebody is counting on. I do like giving people options.”

Democrats still have some energy

Trump’s victory in November might have deflated Democrats, but the party showed some signs of life in Tuesday’s elections. 

Democrats in the Trump era have swamped Republicans in fundraising, and Tuesday’s races demonstrate that the fundraising boom hasn’t stopped; meanwhile, Democrats continue to enjoy a key advantage on the airwaves. 

Crawford’s fundraising helped her outpace Schimel on the airwaves, spending more than $26 million on ads to Schimel’s almost $14 million, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. While GOP outside groups jumped in to help close the gap, Crawford’s advantage is notable because outside groups have to pay higher rates to run ads. 

In Florida, Democrats fell short in the deep-red House districts, but they raised millions of dollars in the process. Democrat Josh Weil, a public school teacher, had raked in over $10 million as of Monday, while Fine, his opponent in the 6th District, had raised $2 million, including $600,000 from himself.

In the 1st District, Valimont had raised $6.5 million as of March 12, while Patronis had raised $2.1 million.

Their losses also underscore the limits of seemingly unlimited money, with the well-funded candidates unable to overcome the deeply Republican slants of both districts. But they did cut into that advantage.

Both Weil and Valimont also outperformed Vice President Kamala Harris in November, with Weil’s vote share improving on Harris’ by 8 points and Valimont surpassing Harris’ vote share by 11 points. Crawford also well outperformed Harris on Tuesday night, carrying in the high single digits a state that Harris lost months earlier.

Democrats touted those margins, noting the party has overperformed in several special elections this year for state legislative seats. 

Battleground voters tuned in 

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race had a slew of factors all coming to a head Tuesday — Musk, Trump, tens of millions of dollars in spending, a battle for partisan control of the court — and what did it all add up to? Record turnout. 

Votes are still being counted, but turnout has already eclipsed the 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court race’s turnout of 1.8 million votes, and both 2025 candidates will end up eclipsing the 2023 candidates’ vote totals. In addition, the number of voters in this year’s contest could approach the number that cast their ballots in the midterm in 2022, when more than 2.6 million people voted in competitive statewide races. 

Take Fond du Lac County, where the Republican Party was founded in 1854. This year, more than 39,000 people cast their ballots there, between the 30,000 who voted in the 2023 Supreme Court race and the almost 47,000 who voted for governor in 2022. 

In Door County, a swingy county north of Green Bay that has sided with the presidential winner in six of the last seven presidential elections (it failed to do so last year), Tuesday’s turnout of 15,300 trends closer to 2022’s 17,300 than 2023’s 12,300.

Wisconsin already had nearly 2.2 million votes tallied by midnight ET, with a chunk of votes still outstanding, according to the NBC News Decision Desk. If that projection holds, the race will end up just shy of turnout in the 2022 midterms, an impressive mark in one of the most politically engaged states in the country. 

Until we get some signs pointing in another direction, don’t expect the consistently high turnout in Trump-era elections to dissipate any time soon.