Big Money Leftists Look To Buy Another WI Supreme Court Seat

In 2023, big-money leftists spent a fortune buying a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. At north of $50 million in spending, the race to determine whether liberals or conservatives would control the Badger State’s highest court was by far the most expensive state judicial race in U.S. history.

That record is about to be shattered, according to the campaign finance reports from the combatants in the latest battle for the Wisconsin Supreme Court. And some of the biggest sugar daddies — and mamas — in leftist politics are again making it rain cash on a pivotal state court race with national implications. 

Left in Control 

Of the approximately $51 million dumped into 2023’s election, Milwaukee liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign raised $17.44 million, much of it from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, according to a review by the left-leaning Wisconsin Democracy Campaign. Another estimate by Wispolitics tracked more than $56 million in spending. Protasiewicz outraised her competitor, former conservative Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, by more than 4 1/2 times. 

Leftists got what they paid for. 

Protasiewicz has, to no one’s surprise, turned out to be a dutiful leftist justice on a seven-member court on which liberals hold a narrow 4-3 majority. Perhaps most notably, in July the Wisconsin Supreme Court reversed a previous ruling and endorsed the widespread use of absentee ballot drop boxes. The ruling came with plenty of time for November’s presidential election, opening the door to the same kinds of suspect practices that plagued the Badger State in 2020.

Elon Musk noted as much last month when he weighed in on Wisconsin’s latest costly Supreme Court race. 

“Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!” Musk wrote on X, referring to the April election pitting Madison liberal Judge Susan Crawford against conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel, who previously served as Wisconsin’s attorney general.   

Democrats whined about multibillionaire Musk, President Trump’s director of the DOGE (Department of Government Efficiency), entering the state court fray. The SpaceX founder gave north of $250 million to committees supporting Trump, and he contributed $2 million to elect conservative judges in his home state of Texas, according to The New York Times. 

But the latest fundraising figures show the race is generating lots of cash from big billionaire leftists. Musk’s money, to date, is nowhere to be found. 

George, Reid, J.B. Cut Hefty Checks

Crawford’s campaign took in nearly $4.47 million between the first of the year and Feb. 3, according to her pre-primary campaign finance report. A good chunk of that, $2 million, came from the state Democratic Party — thanks to a $1 million donation from socialist megadonor George Soros and a half million dollars from morbidly obese Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker. Super leftist LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman cut a $250,000 check to the state Dems. 

The party previously donated $1 million to Crawford’s cause. 

The liberal’s campaign haul in the latest reporting period was nearly double that of Schimel’s $2.71 million raised, according to the initial reports. After the period closed, Crawford reported taking in another $577,735. The Schimel campaign reported receiving another $244,830.89 in the 72-hour period following the deadline. Both campaigns are outpacing fundraising totals at the same time in the April 2023 state Supreme Court race. 

Wisconsin campaign finance laws limit maximum individual contributions to $20,000, but allow unlimited contributions to parties. Crawford’s campaign raked in 12 maximum contributions, including $20,000 donations from Colorado billionaire and liberal activist Pat Stryker and Molly Munger, a Pasadena, Calif., attorney and deep-pocketed leading advocate behind Proposition 38, a failed massive tax increase for California’s public schools. 

You’ll find lots of big-cash donations from Big Labor, including $18,000 contributions from the National Education Association Fund for Children and Public Education, SEIU Wisconsin State Council 33, and the Teamsters. 

Schimel’s campaign recorded seven maximum donations, including a $20,000 contribution from Beloit businesswoman Diane Hendricks, as well as Madison businessman Eric Hovde, a Republican who narrowly lost Wisconsin’s Senate race in November to incumbent Madison Democrat Sen. Tammy Baldwin. Hendricks also contributed $975,000 to the Republican Party of Wisconsin, and Illinois businesswoman Liz Uihlein donated $650,000 to the state GOP, which in turn pumped $1.675 million into Schimel’s campaign. 

‘Where Are the Donors’

Musk’s X post last month effectively urging Wisconsin voters to cast their ballots for Schimel was in response to conservative activist Scott Presler’s post raising red flags that “history is going to repeat itself.” He noted conservatives have the chance to take back control of the court in the April 1 election, but worried that right-of-center voters and donors aren’t taking the race seriously. 

“Where are the donors? Where are the door knockers? Where are the influencers? Where is the support?,” he asked. “Unless people step up to take action & do it quickly, the Court will stay under liberal control.” 

With less than seven weeks until the election, Schimel’s donors definitely aren’t keeping up with Crawford’s. 

In total, Crawford’s campaign has raised more than $7.7 million since launching in June. Schimel has taken in more than $5 million since entering the race in late 2023. That’s 27 times greater than the last conservative candidate raised over the same period in the 2023 race, but Schimel’s fundraising totals lag behind Crawford’s by more than $2.5 million. 

The Crawford camp apparently felt good enough about its cash position to run $346,000 in campaign ads Sunday before, during, and after the Super Bowl in four Wisconsin TV markets, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Schimel’s campaign spent $13,455 on several commercials that ran during Super Bowl pre-game programming in Milwaukee and Madison, the newspaper reported. 

Outside Interests

And there’s a whole lot of money flooding in from outside the Badger State. In a press release boasting about her haul, Crawford insisted her campaign is driven by “grassroots supporters from all 72 counties.”

While 97 percent of Schimel’s campaign donors live in Wisconsin, a review of the records shows 45 percent of Crawford’s 16,639 donors live outside the Badger State. As Schimel noted in a campaign press release, “Soros, Pritzker, and Hoffman’s cash accounted for over 40 percent of the $4 million in individual contributions received by the Democratic Party of Wisconsin this past month.”

“Dangerous out-of-state Billionaires from across the country funneled historic sums to her efforts to serve as the next liberal rubber stamp on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court,” the conservative candidate said in the release. “George Soros, a billionaire notorious for funding defund-the-police organizations, groups deadset on abolishing ICE, and activists fighting to allow men in women’s sports, dumped $1,000,000 into the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.”

True Blue Leftist 

The Crawford campaign did not return The Federalist’s request for comment. When she launched her campaign, the Madison liberal said she was running “to protect the basic rights and freedoms of Wisconsinites under our Constitution.” She added that those rights are “threatened by an all-out effort to politicize the court to drive a right-wing agenda.” 

But Crawford doesn’t seem all that concerned about the unborn’s right to life. She told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that the U.S. 2022 Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade was “wrong” and that she found it “really disappointing” that the high court would “take up a 50-year vested, constitutional right and toss it aside so that young women like my daughter don’t have the same rights and protections that I had when I was her age.” Schimel has been an unabashed defender of pro-life laws. 

Crawford is whole-heartedly endorsed by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin, the leading player in the abortion-on-demand industry. As an attorney, Crawford represented Planned Parenthood in a lawsuit against a law limiting abortions. The court in November heard oral arguments on a state law restricting abortions in most cases. The four liberal justices in no uncertain terms expressed their hostility to the 1849 law, that went into effect following the end of Roe v. Wade. 

As an attorney, Crawford represented the leftist League of Women Voters in its failed attempt to kill Wisconsin’s popular voter ID law. She called the election integrity law “draconian.” Crawford found initial success in a liberal Dane County Court, but the conservative-led Supreme Court at the time eventually upheld voter ID. 

And Crawford was featured at a fundraiser with Dem donors billed as a “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” The Wisconsin Supreme Court under liberal control has signed off on political maps favoring Democrats, and Crawford seems amenable to greater Dem benefits if elected to a 10-year term on the bench. And guess who reportedly organized the fundraising mixer, according to the New York Times: Reid Hoffman and Democratic Party of Wisconsin chairman Ben Wikler. Obama administration attorney general Eric Holder, who chairs the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, was expected to be at the event.  

Much is at stake in Wisconsin’s spring Supreme Court election. Not surprisingly, big outside liberal money again is flooding the race. And the left expects significant return on its investment. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.