The first major elections of President Doan Trump’s second term will take place on Tuesday. Voters head to the perennial battlefield of Wisconsin, and take place in Florida’s Trump-friendly territory.
Tens of millions of dollars will be poured into Wisconsin ahead of the state Supreme Court race on Tuesday, with a major national impact. This is the first major statewide contest on the battlefield since the 2024 election, and is happening in the state where Trump saw his narrowest margin in November.
Elon Musk has emerged as a leading player in the Wisconsin race to expand his political portfolio and provide Democrats with an early test of whether billionaire Trump advisers can become effective boogeymen.
And in Florida, voters head to vote for special elections in the deep red and sixth Congressional districts where Republicans are trying to fill a majority of razor-thin homes. And while both districts are on Trump’s lawns, Republicans worry that race will prove competitive as grassroots energy and the dollar will boost Democratic candidates.
The polls at 7pm in Florida and at 8pm in District 1 are in the central time zone. The Wisconsin votes are until 9pm.
Nonpartisan races with only names – huge states and state influences
This is the second Wisconsin Supreme Court competition on Tuesday in two years when a majority of bench ideologies are in danger. Technically nonpartisan court liberals now hold the advantage of 4-3, with another liberal victory able to maintain their majority for at least a year, and another liberal victory. Meanwhile, a conservative victory will advance a period where there is a high chance of seeing cases of abortion rights, union and collective bargaining rights, parliamentary maps and re-enactment.
The race is a state judge for liberal candidate Susan Crawford-Madison, with support from the National Democratic and National Democratic organizations, as well as financial support from liberal billionaires executives, and directly and indirectly, with Brad Simmell, the state judge and former Republic lawyer general, with the support of Trump and Musk’s billionaires and Musk committees.
But Musk was the one who played the lead role in both sides of the campaign, rather than Trump, who supported Shimmel 11 days before the race in a late-night social media post.
“It became a kind of referendum on the Trump administration, and what Elon Musk is doing as part of it, and Musk amplified it by joining Wisconsin,” explained Barry Baden, a professor of political science at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If there was any doubt about whether this election has any connection to national politics, Trump and Musk have developed a relationship with voters.”
Musk and his super PAC are spending at least $15 million to boost Shimel, campaign finance records show Musk has given him in addition to the $300 award that Musk gave to those who signed the petition against the “activist judge.” He came to Wisconsin on Sunday night and ran a direct campaign for Simel.
Democrats and groups in support of Crawford have made the mask the center of the race, attacking his actions on ads, on trails and on social media, accusing him of “trying to buy.” (Many groups also pointed out that Tesla, the masked electric car company, filed a lawsuit in Wisconsin in January, challenging state laws that prohibit car manufacturers from owning dealers.
Overall, Democrats and their associated external groups have Republicans outperformed Republicans on the airwaves. They spend almost $42 million compared to almost $33 million from conservatives, which is enough to be the most expensive state Supreme Court competition for AD spending, according to ad manipulation company Adimpact.
Despite the level of attention and spending, spring spring contests feature far fewer voters than presidential and mid-races. That means both sides tried to juice voter turnout on Tuesday.
To that end, Simel, Republicans and conservative groups who support him have strongly emphasized Trump’s support for Simel.
In addition to running ads promoting support in the campaign’s home stretch, Simel appeared at a campaign town hall event with Donald Trump Jr. in March, informing the Canvas Group of Conservative Group Turning Point USA that he needed a “support network” around him to help Trump fight the countless suits his administration faces.
The race also included a barrage of messages on both sides of crime and reproductive rights, but in addition to focusing on Trump, the group that supports Shimmel created a closing message in the airwaves that attacked Crawford on transgender issues.
Special election test for Trump’s turf
The Florida special election pair will be fought on Trump’s territory and test his influence on his base and Democrat enthusiasm during the Trump era. Republicans hope to win both races, but there are concerns that closer than expected results could drive a democratic momentum narrative.
The winner of Florida’s first district in the Panhandle will replace former GOP MP Matt Gaetz, while the winner of the District 6 will replace former GOP MP Mike Waltz, who is now Trump’s national security adviser. According to election results for the NBC News decision-making desk, Trump carried District 1 with 37 points in November and 30 points in sixth place.
The race is becoming more competitive due to lower turnout expectations, which were leveraged by Democrats in other special elections during the Trump era and leveraged with blockbuster fundraising from two Democrat candidates.
Republicans raised more concerns about the 6th District race. There, GOP State Sen. Randy Fein competes with Democratic teacher Josh Weil, pointing to Fine’s inactive fundraising and slow advertising spending. In District 1, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis faces Democrat Gay Valimont, a former activist with Mom’s demands for American gun sense, who ran against Gaetz in November.
Both Republican candidates are supported by Trump, and the president last week held a teletown hall for them and encouraged voters to go to vote. They also recently received support from outside groups. Mask’s Super PAC has also jumped into the contest, spending nearly $100,000 on texting on phones and races, according to a filing to the Federal Election Commission.
Neither candidate targets musk directly in their ads. However, both candidates suggested in recent interviews that Musk-led efforts to reduce the size of the federal government and the potential GOP reductions in their qualification programs could affect their race. Because the first district has a large veteran population and District 6 has a considerable senior population.
The nationwide flavor of Wisconsin downballot items
Further down the Wisconsin vote on Tuesday is two other races that are not attracting public attention but have a major local issue. There is a proposed amendment to embarrass the existing voter ID laws on the state constitution, and a state oversight race that has also become somewhat of a referendum on the referendum on the role Musk played in reducing the federal government.
The Voter ID Act is already part of state law, but conservatives want to add it to the constitution and make it even more difficult to overthrow the law. Trump himself approved the amendments proposed in a social media post Monday.
But many strategists in the state, including Republicans, have admitted that another motivation to add questions to the vote is juice conservative turnout in state Supreme Court competition.
The competition for overseeing public leadership – the job of overseeing the state’s education system – has grown in importance in weeks since Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, thereby beginning the process of putting more responsibility on education policy in the hands of the states.
Like the state Supreme Court contest, the technically nonpartisan race took on a distinctly partisan flavour. The incumbent Dr. Jill is backed by the state’s Democrats, but her challenger, Brittany Kinser, has been supported by conservative groups and funders, whom she calls herself moderate.
Kinser is an education consultant who expanded the school selection programme and expanded the main doctrine of the campaign.
Fundamentally, who was her first term and tried to link Kinser to Trump’s U.S. Department of Education’s dismantling and masking efforts.
