President Donald Trump may have run his last race, but that doesn’t mean Elon Musk is done campaigning.

Musk will travel to Wisconsin on Sunday, days ahead of a Supreme Court race that could shift the balance of the state’s highest court. True to his word, the world’s richest man is cementing his status as one of the GOP’s biggest megadonors in an off-year election that has drawn significant national attention.

Musk and his America PAC have spent over $12 million so far on the officially nonpartisan state Supreme Court race to help conservative Judge Brad Schimel. Democrats, including former President Barack Obama, have rallied behind liberal Judge Susan Crawford.

More than $80 million has been spent, making the contest the costliest judicial election in US history — supplanting a Wisconsin court from just two years ago.

“Both sides are making a pitch to make it a referendum on Donald Trump or Elon Musk as the case may be,” Marquette Law School professor Chad Oldfather told Business Insider. “It’s kind of the first election of consequence in the Trump era, so I think people are looking for signs here as to how the population is reacting to everything.”

Oldfather, who studies state constitutional law, said Musk’s presence has given this race a different feel.

“We’ve had outside money coming into these races in the past, I suppose what distinguishes it is that Musk is not trying to downplay his role at all,” Oldfather said.

Tesla is suing to open dealerships in the state, fighting a state law that doesn’t allow automakers to sell directly to consumers. (It’s a frequent issue for Musk’s company.) Musk and just about every other major figure who has weighed in on the race is more concerned about what the seven justices can do that will have national effects.

“We’re trying to stop the Democrats in Wisconsin from removing two House seats,” Musk told Fox News anchor Bret Baier during an interview for “Special Report.”

If Schimel loses, Musk said, “we could lose control of the House and all of the government reforms could be shut down.”

The GOP holds a 6 to 2 majority in the Wisconsin US House of Representatives delegation. History shows that the president’s party typically loses seats. The GOP has a slim House majority, meaning it cannot afford to see more districts become more competitive.

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Musk isn’t hard to miss in the state.

Crawford and her allies have repeatedly highlighted Musk’s spending in the race. Wisconsin Democrats’ website has a splash page that shows Musk as the puppet master of Schimel.

“Elon Musk is the most unpopular active national figure in Wisconsin politics, and the more voters see that the man who is attacking social security and their healthcare is pouring millions of dollars in to help Brad Schimel, the more voters are enraged about the idea of someone trying to buy our state Supreme Court,” Wisconsin Democrats Chairman Ben Wikler told Business Insider.

After Musk announced his initial giveaway, Crawford’s campaign wrote on X, “Brad Schimel and Elon Musk are corrupt.”

In response to Crawford, Schimel’s campaign said their opponent has plenty of well-heeled supporters herself, including George Soros, Bernie Sanders, and Hakeem Jeffries.

“The attempts by Susan Crawford and the Democrats to distract the people of Wisconsin from her extreme views and the radical billionaires funding her are a mockery of hypocrisy,” Jacob Fischer, Schimel campaign spokesperson, said in a statement to Business Insider.

Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming called the focus on Musk’s spending “a diversion.”

“It’s a way for them to take shots at Donald Trump and at Elon Musk,” Schimming told Business Insider. “There’s no lack of lack of big money people that have come into Wisconsin over the years that have greatly outspent Elon Musk.”

According to a March 5 Marquette Law School Poll, Musk has a -12 percentage point approval rating in Wisconsin. The same respondents only slightly disapproved (-3 percentage points) of Trump’s first six weeks in office. Trump won the state last November, part of his swing state sweep over Vice President Kamala Harris that ushered him back into the White House. Just days before Election Day, Trump announced his endorsement of Schimel.

Like in the 2024 election, Musk’s campaigning is also drawing opposition. On Friday, he wrote on X that he would personally award two voters $1 million checks at the Sunday rally. He then deleted the tweet and later clarified that the checks were for attendees who had agreed to become spokespeople for a petition America PAC is pushing across the state. Musk’s political outfit previously promised to give $100 to voters who signed the petition against judicial activism.

Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul, a Democrat, said he would challenge Musk’s giveaway in court. Wisconsin law prohibits anyone from giving “something of value” to voters, which led some election law experts to conclude that Musk’s effort was illegal.

The national attention is unlikely to fade for long.

Wisconsin justices serve 10-year terms. Due to retirements alone, the state will hold multiple Supreme Court elections over the next five years. In the meantime, the current race seems almost inescapable, Oldfather said.

“It’s a deluge,” he said, “every time you turn on the TV, every time you pull up YouTube, every you open your mailbox, every time your phone dings with a text message.”

For the second time in a year, Elon Musk appears to be trying to bribe voters — and election law experts say it’s probably illegal.

Musk offered Thursday to “personally hand over” a total of $2 million to two individuals who have already voted in the closely watched Wisconsin Supreme Court race. (It’s unclear whether the payment is conditional on voting for Musk’s preferred candidate.)

Following threats of potential legal blowback, however, he said that the recipients of the $1 million reward would instead be chosen on the basis of their ability to be effective spokespeople for a petition against “activist judges.” His PAC has also offered $100 to anyone who signs the petition.

The stakes are high: The election will determine the court’s ideological balance — and potentially the future of abortion rights, electoral maps, and unions in the critical battleground state.

It’s the second time in two years that control of the court has been up for grabs. It’s also the second time that Musk has promised cash rewards to voters, and last time, he didn’t face any repercussions. Here’s what we know.

When was the last time Musk tried something like this?

In 2024, Musk’s PAC orchestrated a $1 million daily giveaway to registered voters in battleground states. The PAC initially said the recipients would be selected randomly in a lottery that the Philadelphia district attorney argued was a violation of state election law. Election law experts also argued that it violated federal law prohibiting cash payments for registering to vote or casting a ballot, including as part of a lottery.

So, are Musk’s payments legal?

In a blog post Friday, election law expert Rick Hasen, a professor at UCLA Law, said probably not. He pointed to Wisconsin state law, which states that paying voters to turn out is a crime. There is also a federal prohibition on vote-buying, but that doesn’t kick in when there are no federal candidates on the ballot, and it’s not clear that Trump’s Department of Justice would even prosecute Musk if it could, Hasen wrote.

Still, it’s alarming that the richest man in the world could be trying to buy votes in a highly contested and consequential election — and that at least one state court has already greenlighted a similar scheme before. Wisconsin Democratic Party Chair Ben Wikler said in a statement Friday, “Musk can have his day in court, but he cannot buy the court.”

NINA MOINI: Well, there’s a pretty important and pretty expensive Supreme Court race happening in Wisconsin next week. The two candidates, conservative Judge Brad Schimel and liberal Judge Susan Crawford, are going to face off April 1. Both have raised millions of dollars and garnered attention from some prominent names in politics, including Elon Musk, who’s department of governmental efficiency has slashed funding for government jobs and cuts thousands of federal jobs so far. So joining me now is Matt Smith. He’s the politics director of WISN 12 News in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He’s also a Minnesota Native who grew up in Esko, just south of Duluth. Thanks for being on with us today, Matt.

MATT SMITH: Thank you for having me. It’s good to chat this afternoon.

NINA MOINI: It’s so interesting to learn about our neighbors in Wisconsin. Obviously, so much of what happens across state borders affects all of us when we share a border, and really, the country at large. So a lot of people might not be following this election, though, very closely. Can you tell us why this race is getting so much national attention?

MATT SMITH: It’s pretty wild how much attention it’s received, both here in the state and now across the country. So let’s start at home, in Wisconsin. Control of the state Supreme Court is at stake. Right now, liberals hold a 4 to 3 majority on the state Supreme Court. Justice is retiring Ann Walsh Bradley, who’s been on the court for 30 years. She’s a liberal justice. So that puts in balance now whether conservatives or liberals will control the court.

Two years ago, liberals took over control of the court after 15 years of conservative dominance. And we’ve seen things like the abortion law before the courts, redistricting here at the statewide level, ballot drop boxes have been reinstated. So a lot of this race has focused on some of these key issues here in the State of Wisconsin, legislatively, but it’s exploded, nationally.

NINA MOINI: Yeah, tell me about some of the attack ads and just some of the involvement and the feelings around everything that’s happening.

MATT SMITH: It’s crazy. Record spending. This now, again, has become the most expensive judicial race ever in the country, nationwide, here in Wisconsin. And we’re seeing this play out on TV, like 100% political campaign. You turn on any local station at this point, you are inundated with TV ads of a political nature. And to be quite honest, a lot of these attack ads and political ads have nothing to do with what a Supreme Court justice has done.

Whether it be the campaigns themselves or these outside groups, they’ve really focused on the past records of both of these judges. They both have been circuit court judges in the past. They both have heard criminal cases before. So a lot of this has been talking about their sentences. Are they tough on crime? Are they weak on crime? And it’s really morphed into a political campaign, completely removed from what a state Supreme Court Justice actually does.

NINA MOINI: What’s the reaction from voters that you go out and talk to about this level of attention on this race?

MATT SMITH: So, listen, we’re just coming off of November, right?

NINA MOINI: Yeah.

MATT SMITH: I think folks in Western Wisconsin can appreciate just how much Wisconsin was targeted in November. The same thing is happening now. So there’s two stories here. First, when you go out and talk to voters, they’re saying, man, I’m sick of these TV ads. Get them off my TV. But at the same time, in the polling, we’re seeing that a majority of voters say they now want Supreme Court candidates to talk about the issues, like abortion, like redistricting, like voting issues.

So you have this mix of a judge should not be talking about cases that could come before them, but at the same time, it’s morphed into a political campaign. And you have voters out there saying, well, I guess we want to know what a judge thinks about abortion, or redistricting, or what have you.

NINA MOINI: Tell me a little bit about the role of Elon Musk that we mentioned earlier and some of the bigger names. What’s been standing out to you there?

MATT SMITH: So there’s a ton of money coming in from all sides. Let’s start with the Elon Musk. It was just recently reported that Elon himself has donated about $3 million to the state Republican Party. And then the state Republican Party funnels that money to Brad Schimel’s campaign. On the flip side of that, two super PACs tied to Elon Musk have spent nearly $20 million on TV ads, on get out the vote efforts, think mailers, think door to door operations.

So there is a ton of money invested from Elon Musk himself. He just held an event on X last weekend with Brad Schimel, officially endorsing him. That came off the endorsement from President Trump for Brad Schimel. On the flip side, we’re seeing millions of dollars from liberal donors, like George Soros, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker.

They’re doing the same thing. They’re sending their millions to the state Democratic Party, which is then funneling the money to Susan Crawford’s campaign. That allows the way this process and the way Wisconsin law operates, it allows this money to go to the state parties, an unlimited amount of money, and then be funneled to the campaigns.

NINA MOINI: I’m curious for you– I mean, since you’re a political director, I’m assuming you’ve been doing this for a while. I wonder just what it’s like to cover this case for you and the changes in different election cycles over the years. What are your reflections?

MATT SMITH: Yeah, it’s crazy. And it’s almost like a nonstop political universe in the State of Wisconsin, being a battleground state. And we’re going to have a state Supreme Court election every year for the next couple years. And depending on who wins this one, it could flip back and forth in terms of the balance of the court.

We hosted WISN, the only debate between the two candidates a couple of weeks ago. And it was an hour-long debate. And we talked a lot about judicial issues, but you’re also talking about the state of the race. You’re talking about campaign money. You’re talking about abortion. You’re talking about voter ID. You’re talking about a lot of hot button issues that have really become political and polarizing in a state like Wisconsin that is 50-50.

And it’s really going to come down to turnout on Tuesday. In terms of a spring election, we’re seeing record early voting across the state in blue counties, in red counties. There is a ton of interest in this race. And election officials anticipate this could be record turnout for a spring election here in Wisconsin.

NINA MOINI: And there is so much interest, in part, because of the implications for outside of Wisconsin, and as it pertains to the courts, and the actions of the Trump administration. Can you tell us a little bit about that?

MATT SMITH: Yeah. No matter what side you talk to at this point, they see it as a litmus test on the first 100 days of the Trump administration. And Democrats are really testing out this anti-Elon Musk strategy. And if that would work here in the State of Wisconsin, they would look to replicate that in other states, especially as we quickly head into talk of the midterms already.

And you’re seeing Democrats so heavily focused on Elon, less on Trump because, here in Wisconsin, at least, the recent polling is showing that Trump is more popular than Elon Musk. So they’re going hard after Elon Musk. And Republicans are embracing it. Brad Schimel is embracing the Trump endorsement.

What Republicans need and what the Schimel campaign needs is for Republican voters, Trump voters, who may have only voted for Trump and have sat out other elections, they need those voters to show up to the polls in order for Brad Schimel to win, because Democrats have had an advantage in spring elections here in Wisconsin in recent years. So, I mean, it’s a ground game. It’s all about turnout. These candidates are crisscrossing the state in these final hours ahead of Tuesday. They’re doing bus tours. I mean, it’s a 100% political campaign and operation at this point.

NINA MOINI: Well, Matt, we really appreciate you stopping by Minnesota Now and filling in your neighbors. Good luck with next week. Another busy one for you, I suppose.

MATT SMITH: Absolutely. Thanks for having me. Great chatting this afternoon.

NINA MOINI: Take care. That was Matt Smith, the politics director of WISN 12 News in Milwaukee.