Whole Hog Politics: Musk proves elections are awfully hard to buy

The Hill

04-04-2025

On the menu: Tariffs taxed in new poll; Senate Dems get their man in New Hampshire; California primary getting crowded; Peter Navarro, 'Drumline' enthusiast; At least he didn't add Jeffrey Goldberg.
People keep telling me that money is the big problem in politics. But if that's true, how come nobody can ever seem to buy a danged election anymore?
In 1980, then-West Virginia Gov. Jay Rockefeller coolly noted to the press that he was willing to devote whatever millions of dollars of his family's fortune were necessary to win a second term in a rematch with Republican Arch Moore, the man who had defeated Rockefeller in 1972.
The boast won a reply in bumper-sticker form from Moore's supporters: 'Make him spend it all, Arch.' And while Moore didn't make him spend it all, Rockefeller did outspend Moore 12 to 1, dumping what would be in today's dollars $45 or $50 million on the race.
Is that why Rockefeller won by 9 points instead of losing by 9 points, as he did eight years earlier? It may have been that in 1972, Richard Nixon was the only Republican to carry the Mountain State between 1956 and 1984 and had coattails; or that in the first race, Moore was the incumbent and Rockefeller was the challenger, and in the rematch the roles were reversed. But spending what today would be more than $115 for every vote he received surely had to be a good bit of the difference for Rockefeller.
Nor was that Rockefeller the only Rockefeller to figure out that carpetbagging was a value proposition. Unlike his uncle Nelson who stayed in New York, where elections are pricey, Jay's uncle Winthrop headed out to Arkansas where grandpa John D. 's compounded profits went a lot farther.
So now it's Teslas instead of Standard Oil, but the impulse remains the same for some of the very rich. Elon Musk, the richest man in America (and therefore the world), tried a similar maneuver in Wisconsin this week, dumping gobs of money and his manic campaign presence into a contest for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Through direct expenditures and his super PACs, it looks like Musk put at least $25 million into an effort to elect Brad Schimel, the state's former attorney general, to fill the swing seat on the state's high court. Musk and the Muskovites ran millions in ads, wrote $1 million checks to two young Wisconsin Republicans as ' spokespeople ' and one of his PACs offered $50 for anyone uploading a photo of a Wisconsin resident outside of a polling place. In West Virginia, when you bought somebody's vote back in the Kennedy era, it was customary to include a pint of whiskey as a courtesy, so the Wisconsin picture payola represents a step backward for electoral compensation but a great advance in convenience.
Musk's loud, early entry into the contest, of course, drew in the aspiring election purchasers from the other side. America's Dairyland overflowed with cash from Democratic billionaires, including Hyatt Hotel heir JB Pritzker, the governor of neighboring Illinois, who has an obvious appetite for even higher office. In all, it looks like the race will have consumed more than $100 million for a single seat on a seven-member court in the 20th biggest state in the union.
Woof.
So what did all that money buy? Wisconsin had an almost identical race with similar stakes in 2023. That time it was a Republican-backed justice who was retiring, so the GOP was trying to maintain control of the court, while this time the roles were reversed. But the result was the same: In both races, the Democratic-backed candidate won by 10 points.
The major difference was that turnout this year was through the roof. An astonishing 520,892 more people voted this time — a 28 percent increase from two years ago.
Musk was explicitly testing the premise of whether he could solve his party's biggest political problem of the Trump era: what to do about midterms and special elections when the Republicans rely on lower-income, lower propensity voters to fuel presidential victories. Musk is broadly unpopular, but is a beloved celebrity in the very online MAGA world. Could his famous name and deep pockets mobilize the younger and more downscale voters who are unlikely to get jazzed up for a judicial election?
The answer was yes, but, unfortunately for Musk, he also proved to be a powerful motivator for Democrats, too. Turnout went up, but it went up across the board; a very expensive way to get an exact repeat of the election two years ago that cost half as much.
Musk claimed after the loss he expected the Wisconsin effort to fail but that it was worth ' losing a piece for a positional gain,' the premise presumably being that Musk and his team are honing their methods for the future in Wisconsin and elsewhere. It seems obvious that placing such a big bet and walking away with nothing to show for it will tend to increase the willingness of Republicans who have grown resentful of the mercurial methods of the tech billionaire to oppose him. But perhaps even the 'positional gain' idea for methods is flawed.
In 2024, Musk showered Donald Trump with money, spending something like $200 million in the swing states to help the Republican nominee. But nowhere was Musk more active or liberal with his checkbook than in the most important swing state, Pennsylvania. That was where Musk first tried out his idea of paying voters and where he appeared again and again, with and without Trump.
And yet, when the votes were counted, the shift in Pennsylvania was smaller than in the nation as a whole. The Keystone state was 2.9 points more Republican in 2024 than it was in 2020, compared to a 6-point shift in the national popular vote. OK, fine. Democrats weren't spending any time or money in the places where the biggest shifts were happening, mostly metropolitan areas in blue states. So maybe Musk made the difference where it counted.
But the shift in Pennsylvania wasn't even big compared with the six other states where Democrats did spend all their time and money. Pennsylvania's drift to the right was the fourth largest of the seven, smack in the middle. It was half of what it was in Arizona, where Musk spent comparatively little time or money.
Musk's massive cash infusions no doubt helped a Trump campaign that at the end of last summer was in a deep financial hole. But so did the money from other Republican billionaires who were mostly content to let the very effective and well-run Trump campaign proceed as it wished. It wasn't so much that Trump got the bonus of Musk's involvement along with the money, but that he had to accept Musk's meddling as a condition of getting the cash. Whether or not there was any truth in that in 2024, Musk's low, low favorability ratings now certainly suggest that it is the case today.
Polls tell us that the influence of money in politics is a top concern of American voters — 72 percent in a recent Pew Research survey — and it is certainly an easy target for people looking to complain about the rotten way we've been running things in recent years.
But looking at Wisconsin and the astonishing failures of overfunded candidates like Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton, it suggests that elections are awfully hard to buy. Yes, you don't want to get swamped like Arch Moore did back in 1980, but once you're in contention, more money doesn't equal more votes — especially if the money is coming from one of the most polarizing figures in American life.
There are only two pertinent amounts of money in campaigns: enough and not enough. Everything else is just spoilage.
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NUTRITIONAL INFORMATION
Trump Job Performance
Average Approval: 45.2%
Average Disapproval: 51.4%
Net Score: -6.2 points
Change from last week: -1.8 points
[Average includes: TIPP: 44% approve – 45% disapprove; Marquette Law: 46% approve – 54% disapprove; AP/NORC: 42% approve – 56% disapprove; Ipsos/Reuters: 45% approve – 51% disapprove; Fox News: 49% approve – 51% disapprove]
Americans overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump's trade tactics
Overall, do you approve or disapprove of the way Donald Trump is handling trade negotiations with other countries?
Overall: 38% approve – 60% disapprove
Republicans: 72% approve – 27% disapprove
Independents: 28% approve – 68% disapprove
Democrats: 10% approve – 89% disapprove
[ AP/NORC poll of 1,229 U.S. adults, March 2025 ]
ON THE SIDE: SPILLING THE BEANS
Smithsonian Magazine: 'Stenophylla is a coffee plant, not a criminal, and yet it can still lay claim to its very own 'Wanted' poster. In 2018, Aaron Davis, head of coffee research at the Royal Botanic Gardens was desperate to track down the rare species, which hadn't been seen in the wild since 1954. … He had no choice but to start searching Sierra Leone's forests himself. … Yet even knowing what to look for, the two botanists often had to trek for days through rainforests. They got caught in a cyclone; Davis almost died of hookworm. … When they finally found the plant, it ended up being measly, with no fruits or flowers. To an untrained eye, it looked like any other shrub in the forest. But Davis knew right away—he saw that distinctive architecture. … By 2020, Davis' team had finally collected enough stenophylla in the wild to roast nine grams—a tiny amount, but enough for him to finally have his first long-awaited taste. … Stenophylla resembled Rwandan bourbon coffee, a premium arabica of exceptional quality. 'I was just, like, oh, my God, this is amazing.''
PRIME CUTS
Pappas launches New Hampshire Senate bid: The Hill: 'Rep. Chris Pappas (D-N.H.) announced Thursday he's running for a Senate seat in New Hampshire to replace Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), who's retiring. … Pappas is the first Democrat to throw his hat in the ring for Shaheen's seat, though others in the party, including first-term Rep. Maggie Goodlander (D-N.H.), also could launch bids. Pappas's announcement followed a 10-county listening tour he took as he mulled a potential bid. Should Pappas win the seat, he would make history as the first openly gay man elected to the Senate. … Meanwhile, former New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) and former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and Samoa Scott Brown are mulling bids on the Republican side.'
Independent Osborn floats second Senate campaign: Nebraska Examiner: 'Former Nebraska U.S. Senate candidate Dan Osborn decided Thursday to explore another run for the Senate, this time against Republican U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts in the midterms.
… The former Omaha labor leader's announcement of a second possible Senate run comes after his populist bid against U.S. Sen. Deb Fischer, R-Neb., in 2024 made national headlines for turning an expected safe race into a potential upset. … He attracted an extraordinary fundraising haul for a nonpartisan federal candidate in Nebraska of $14 million. … Osborn told the Nebraska Examiner last month that he had expanded his scope for his next political office run last month after initially thinking about running against Republican U.S. Rep. Don Bacon in the Omaha-based 2nd District or running for governor against GOP Gov. Jim Pillen. … The same working-class-focused rhetoric that drove President Donald Trump's victory gives someone like Osborn an opening.'
McMorrow first to join Dem field in Michigan: New York Times: 'State Senator Mallory McMorrow of Michigan, a Democrat from the Detroit suburbs, jumped into her state's U.S. Senate race on Wednesday, becoming the first prominent candidate to enter the contest. … The seat opened after Senator Gary Peters, a Democrat, announced his retirement. … 'We need new leaders,' Ms. McMorrow, 38, said in her announcement video. 'The same people in D.C. who got us into this mess are not going to be the ones to get us out of it.' … Democrats who have signaled that they are eyeing the Senate race include Representative Haley Stevens, a moderate from suburban Detroit; Representative Kristen McDonald Rivet, a Democrat who won a challenging House district in Michigan last year; and Abdul El-Sayed, an outgoing health director in Wayne County.'
Adams ditches Dems, will run as independent: The Hill: 'New York City Mayor Eric Adams (D) announced he is running for reelection as an independent in the mayoral race, as he has faced long odds of being able to win as a Democrat. … The mayor said in a video posted on the social platform X that the 'bogus' criminal case against him dragged on too long, causing a primary campaign to be impossible to mount. 'But I'm not a quitter, I'm a New Yorker,' he said. 'And that is why today, though I am still a Democrat, I am announcing that I will forego the Democratic primary for mayor and appeal directly to all New Yorkers as an independent in the general election.' … The news comes a day after a federal judge formally dismissed the corruption case against Adams. … Despite emphasizing his innocence, his already poor approval rating plummeted since he was indicted in September, and a majority of New Yorkers have consistently said in polling that they believe he should resign.'
Dem overperformances in Florida remind GOP of 2018: UVA Center for Politics: 'A theme of the first two years of Donald Trump's first administration was Democratic overperformance in special elections. In the oft-memed words of the Giant in Twin Peaks, 'It is happening again.' … In 2017-2018, Democrats ran on average 10.6 points ahead of Clinton's showing in 2016. That was a smaller 4.8 points in 2020, and then Democrats ran 3.7 points on average behind Joe Biden in the 2022 cycle. … This isn't a perfectly predictive indicator—indeed, it suggested a better showing for Democrats than they got in 2024, for sure. … But it is notable that the biggest overperformances in the Trump era came in advance of 2018, also the Democrats' best electoral showing in this era. The 2025 Downballot average so far, including the two races [on Tuesday], is that Democrats are running 11.4 points ahead of Kamala Harris's 2024 margin, very similar to the 2017-2018 number. This is why we think it feels a lot like 2017 right now.'
SHORT ORDER
Handful of Republican senators join Dems to try to undo Canada tariffs— Wall Street Journal
GOP leaders dismiss Trump's talk of third term— NBC News
Xavier Becerra launches California gubernatorial bid— Los Angeles Times
Former aide launches primary challenge to longtime Dem Rep. Brad Sherman — The Hill
TABLE TALK
'The beginning is always today.'
'As the movie 'Drumline' goes, 'one band, one sound.'' — White House senior trade adviser Peter Navarro in a statement likening the administration's tariff approach to the 2002 coming-of-age comedy-drama.
MAHA or MWHAHAHA?
'I said to Governor Morrisey the first time I saw him, I said, 'You look like you ate Governor Morrisey.' … Raise your hand if you want Gov. Morrisey to do a public weigh-in once a month. Then when he's lost 30 pounds, I'm going to come back to the state and do a celebration and a public weigh-in with him.' — Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at an event in West Virginia for health initiatives, with some notes for Gov. Patrick Morrisey (R).
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FOR DESSERT
Next Time, Try Signal
AP: 'The mayor of one of North Dakota's largest cities resigned after an investigation into him mistakenly sending a lewd video to the city attorney. Minot Mayor Tom Ross resigned Tuesday, the same day an investigative report was made public that found Ross sent a video of himself masturbating to City Attorney Stefanie Stalheim in January. He sent the video minutes after the two had a telephone call discussing a [police matter]. Ross asked Stalheim to delete the video, not to watch it and to keep the incident between them, the report said. Ross told an interviewer he had recorded the video at home during a lunch break and meant to send it to his romantic partner, not to Stalheim. He had said it was 'a sexy video for his girlfriend.''