Much has changed since the last time Elon Musk tried to win an election in Wisconsin.
Five months ago, his chosen candidate was Donald J. Trump. Mr. Musk did not work in the White House. It was unclear if the Department of Government Efficiency was more than just a meme. Mr. Musk was unproven as a political force, taking advantage of new campaign finance rules to deploy an army of canvassers who could knock on Wisconsin doors millions of times. Mr. Trump ended up winning the state by about 30,000 votes.
This spring, Mr. Musk is returning to that Badger State playbook — in an entirely different political world.
Mr. Musk’s chosen candidate is a hopeful for the State Supreme Court, Brad Schimel, whom the billionaire barely knows. Mr. Musk has become a main character in the country’s politics as a White House super-aide. He is now subject to its ethics rules but is simultaneously throwing millions of dollars into pro-Trump causes. And Democrats are running hard against him and his government-gutting effort in the April 1 election.
If Mr. Musk succeeds, conservatives will retake a 4-to-3 majority on the court and put themselves in a position to push the battleground state rightward on issues like abortion rights, labor rights and congressional maps. In a sign of the race’s importance for conservatives, Mr. Trump endorsed Judge Schimel on Friday night.
“Musk saw the benefit of his involvement in Wisconsin” in 2024, former Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican, said in an interview.
Working with Keith Gilkes, the longtime head of Mr. Walker’s political operation who also oversaw Mr. Musk’s work in Wisconsin last year, the former governor said he had begun late last year to strategize on how to make the billionaire pay attention to the court race — and pay for part of it. He drafted a plan that he said Mr. Gilkes circulated to Mr. Musk’s team and others.
Those Wisconsin Republicans couldn’t have planned for the additional incentive that soon presented itself: A conservative-controlled court could be in a position to issue a Musk-friendly decision in a lawsuit from his electric-car company, Tesla, challenging Wisconsin’s law prohibiting vehicle manufacturers from owning dealerships. On social media, Mr. Musk began to show interest in the Wisconsin court election eight days after Tesla filed the lawsuit in January.
The pitch from Mr. Walker and Mr. Gilkes? Run it back. “You were effective in Wisconsin, and you can be effective in this race again in Wisconsin,” Mr. Walker said.
And so Mr. Musk is largely sticking with the formula that worked last time: door-knockers, lots of money and even a similar petition meant to identify and turn out conservative voters.
Mr. Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, has laid out $6.6 million so far. The group has assembled a canvassing operation of over 500 employees who have knocked on doors, with about 40 paid active canvassers in the Green Bay area, roughly 70 in the Madison area and more in Milwaukee and rural parts of the state, according to three people briefed on the operation. The super PAC has told its canvassing firms to cut their worst performers. The group declined to comment on its internal workings.
Canvassers, most of them paid about $25 an hour or $1.50 a door, have flooded Wisconsin neighborhoods wearing white “AMERICA” lanyards with a badge that shows a photo of Mr. Trump raising a fist after the assassination attempt in Butler, Pa., last summer.
The group has knocked on over a million doors during this blitz, some of the people said. This week, the super PAC informed several of its door-knocking firms that it was cutting back on its overall targets in what Mr. Musk’s group described to them as a reallocation of resources.
The race may be different, but the script is still Trumpy: Canvassers distribute literature that says a vote for Judge Schimel, who currently sits on a Waukesha County circuit court, would “keep President Trump’s agenda moving forward.” The brochures also feature a QR code that sends voters to a website where they can check their registration status, find early-voting locations and request mail-in ballots. Mr. Musk’s super PAC is again hoping to turn out voters who don’t always make it to the polls during early voting, which began Tuesday, or on Election Day.
The election is also more Musky: America PAC’s canvassers are leaning more into the billionaire’s celebrity than they did during the presidential race.
“I am with America PAC, an organization run by Elon Musk,” reads part of one question that Wisconsin canvassers are reciting, according to a script seen by The New York Times. Later, they ask, “Can President Trump and Elon Musk count on you to vote for Brad Schimel?”
People involved in Mr. Musk’s 2024 outreach considered their Wisconsin organization among their better-run efforts, and the field operation is led by the same strategists. But Mr. Musk’s group jumped into this year’s court contest months later than it entered the presidential race, giving itself only six weeks or so to help Judge Schimel.
One difference from 2024: A nonprofit group that Mr. Musk has previously backed, Building America’s Future, has spent about $4.5 million on the race, mostly on television. The group, which does not have to disclose its donors, claims to have improved Judge Schimel’s polling by enough that the conservative side’s ground game could tip the balance.
“With people like Elon coming in, we’re pretty much matching the Democrats dollar for dollar, and that never happens in Supreme Court races,” said Scott Presler, a conservative activist whose work Mr. Musk supported with $1 million in Pennsylvania in 2024 and who is now involved in Wisconsin. Mr. Musk’s first sign of interest in the race was his sharing of a social media post from Mr. Presler in January.
Mr. Presler added, “Elon is allowing for a playing field, which is all we ask for.”
Another, perhaps unsurprising, difference from 2024: Mr. Musk has not appeared quite as excited about Judge Schimel as he was about Mr. Trump.
On X, Mr. Musk has expressed alarm about the involvement of the liberal billionaire George Soros in Wisconsin politics, and about how a liberal-controlled court could force a redrawing of the state’s congressional map that would help Democrats in the 2026 midterm elections. When he shared the post from Mr. Presler, Mr. Musk said it was “very important” for conservatives to win “to prevent voting fraud” in future elections. The race is seen as a tossup, and there is no reliable public polling on such elections.
But Mr. Musk has not reposted viral content about Judge Schimel or his liberal opponent, Susan Crawford, and his posts about the race are far more sporadic. Democrats have tried to paint Judge Schimel as a stooge of the billionaire, and the judge has tried to distance himself from Mr. Musk.
Mr. Trump, of course, has kept Mr. Musk rather close.
And that is perhaps the most significant difference from last November: Mr. Musk is no longer a private citizen. He is Mr. Trump’s right-hand man in trying to dismantle significant parts of federal agencies, working as a “special government employee” in the White House.
Never before has a senior White House aide funded a super PAC that promotes the political agenda of his boss.
The Hatch Act prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are on the job, but it allows almost all of them to donate to political campaigns. White House aides also frequently play roles in presidents’ political operations, and doing so is legal as long as the work does not occur while they are acting in their official capacity, said Kedric Payne, a government ethics expert at the Campaign Legal Center, a watchdog group.
“There’s no law that prohibits somebody from their First Amendment right of giving a contribution,” Mr. Payne said. When Mr. Musk is not working for the White House, Mr. Payne added, “he is a citizen that can engage in this political and campaign activity.”
Since Mr. Musk joined the Trump administration, his super PAC has defended his government work and directed his supporters to follow his progress on his social media platform.
The super PAC sent two emails this week to its list of supporters encouraging them to look at the website and X account of the Department of Government Efficiency.
On Friday, the super PAC went a step further: It began selling DOGE-branded tumblers, hats and T-shirts for up to $35 a pop.
Reid J. Epstein contributed reporting.
