What to watch as Wisconsin and Florida host the first major elections of Trump's second term

Yahoo

01-04-2025

The first major elections of President Doanld Trump's second term will take place on Tuesday, as voters head to the polls in Wisconsin, a perennial battleground, and in Trump-friendly territory in Florida.
Tens of millions of dollars have poured into Wisconsin ahead of Tuesday's state Supreme Court race in a contest that could have huge national implications. It's the first major statewide contest in a battleground since the 2024 election — and it's happening in the state where Trump saw his narrowest margin-of-victory in November.
Elon Musk has emerged as a major player in the Wisconsin race as he expands his political portfolio, providing Democrats with an early test for whether the billionaire Trump adviser can be an effective boogeyman.
And in Florida, voters will head to the polls for special elections in the deep-red 1st and 6th Congressional Districts, where Republicans are looking to pad their razor-thin House majority. And though both districts are on Trump's turf, Republicans have been anxious that the races could prove to be competitive, as grassroots energy — and dollars — boost the Democratic contenders.
Polls close at 7 p.m. ET in Florida's 6th District and 8 p.m. ET in the 1st District, which is in the central time zone. And polls in Wisconsin close at 9 p.m. ET.
Tuesday's Wisconsin Supreme Court race marks the second time in two years that the bench's ideological majority will be at stake. Liberals on the technically nonpartisan court currently hold a 4-3 advantage, and another liberal win could keep that majority alive for at least one more year — while a conservative victory would give them the edge ahead of a term likely to see cases on abortion rights, unions and collective bargaining rights, and congressional maps and redistricting.
The race is between liberal candidate Susan Crawford — a state judge in Madison who has received the backing of the state and national Democratic Party organizations, as well as the financial support, directly and indirectly, of a cadre of liberal billionaires — and Brad Schimel, a state judge and former Republican state attorney general who has the backing of Trump and Musk, the tech billionaire and leader of Trump's Department of Government Efficiency.
However, more than Trump, who endorsed Schimel 11 days ahead of the race in a late-night social media post, it's been Musk who has taken on the starring role in the campaign on both sides.
'It's become kind of a referendum on the Trump administration, and what Elon Musk is doing as part of that, and Musk has amplified that by getting involved in Wisconsin,' explained Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. 'If there was any doubt about whether this election had a connection to national politics, Trump and Musk have made that connection for voters.'
Musk and his super PAC have spent at least $15 million to boost Schimel, campaign finance records show, on top of three $1 million prizes Musk has awarded to those who signed his petition against 'activist judges.' He came to Wisconsin on Sunday night to campaign for Schimel in person.
Democrats and groups supporting Crawford leaned heavily into making Musk the centerpiece of the race, attacking him in ads, on the trail, and on social media over his actions at DOGE and accusing him of 'trying to buy' Schimel. (Many groups also pointed out that Tesla, Musk's electric car company, filed a suit in Wisconsin in January challenging a state law banning carmakers from owning dealerships — a case that could potentially come before the state Supreme Court).
Overall, Democrats and their affiliated outside groups have outspent Republicans on the airwaves — they've spent almost $42 million compared to almost $33 million from conservatives, enough to make it the most expensive state Supreme Court race on record, as far as ad spending, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact.
Despite the level of attention and spending, the springtime, off-year contest, will feature far fewer voters than in presidential and midterm races — meaning that both sides have sought to juice their turnout on Tuesday.
To that end, Schimel and Republican and conservative groups supporting him have heavily emphasized Trump's endorsement of Schimel — a move that could help turn out Republican voters in a state that Trump carried in two of the past three presidential elections.
In addition to running ads touting the endorsement down the home stretch of the campaign, Schimel appeared at a campaign town hall event in March with Donald Trump Jr. and told a group of canvassers from the conservative group Turning Point USA that Trump needs a 'support network' around him to help him fight the myriad suits his administration has faced.
While the race also included a barrage of messaging on both sides on crime and reproductive rights, groups supporting Schimel, in addition to focusing on Trump, built a closing message on the airwaves that attacked Crawford over transgender issues — a move that replicates the successful strategy Republicans and Trump used during the final weeks of their winning 2024 campaign.
The pair of Florida special elections will be fought on Trump's territory, testing his influence over his base and Democrats' enthusiasm in the Trump era. Republicans are expecting to win both races, but there are concerns that closer-than-expected results could fuel a narrative of Democratic momentum.
The winner in Florida's 1st District in the Panhandle will replace former GOP Rep. Matt Gaetz, while the 6th District winner will replace former GOP Rep. Mike Waltz, now Trump's national security adviser. Trump carried the 1st District by 37 points in November and the 6th by 30 points, according to election results from NBC News' Decision Desk.
The races are more competitive due to expectations of lower turnout, which Democrats have leveraged in other special elections in the Trump era, and blockbuster fundraising from the two Democratic candidates.
Republicans have raised more concerns about the 6th District race, where GOP state Sen. Randy Fine is competing against Democratic teacher Josh Weil, pointing to Fine's lackluster fundraising and late ad spending. In the 1st District, Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis is facing Democrat Gay Valimont, a former activist with Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America who ran against Gaetz in November.
Both Republican candidates have Trump's backing, and the president held tele-town halls for them last week, encouraging his voters to go to the polls. They've also gotten a boost from outside groups in recent days. Musk's super PAC has also jumped into the contests, spending nearly $100,000 on phone calls and texts in the races, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Neither Democratic candidate has directly targeted Musk in their ads. But both candidates suggested in recent interviews that the Musk-led effort to slash the size of the federal government, and potential GOP cuts to entitlement programs, could impact their races, since the 1st District has a large share of veterans and the 6th District has a sizable senior population.
Further down the Wisconsin ballot on Tuesday are two other races that haven't garnered much national attention but have been major local issues. There is a proposed amendment to enshrine an existing voter ID law into the state constitution, as well as a state superintendent race that has also become somewhat of a referendum on the role Musk has played in downsizing the federal government.
The voter ID law is already part of the state code, but conservatives want to add it to the constitution to make it more difficult to strike the law down — if, for example, a liberal-majority state Supreme Court were to invalidate the law with a ruling. Trump himself endorsed the proposed amendment in a social media post Monday.
But many strategists in the state, including Republicans, have acknowledged another motivation for adding the question to the ballot was to juice conservative turnout in the state Supreme Court race.
The race for the superintendent of public instruction — a job that oversees the state's education system — has taken on increased importance in the weeks since Trump signed an executive order to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, thereby beginning a process to put far more responsibility on education policy directly in states' hands.
Like the state Supreme Court contest, the technically nonpartisan race has taken on a distinctly partisan flavor. The incumbent, Dr. Jill Underly, is backed by the state Democratic Party, while her challenger, Brittany Kinser, has received the backing of conservative groups and funders, though she has called herself a moderate.
Kinser is an education consultant who has made expanding school choice programs the main tenet of her campaign.
Underly, who is in her first term, has attempted to tie Kinser to Trump's dismantling of the U.S. Department of Education, as well as Musk's DOGE effort.
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com