WHAT THE FLORIDA AND WISCONSIN ELECTIONS MEAN. Were there any surprises from the two House elections in Florida and the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin? Not really. Democrats were desperately hoping to strike a blow against President Donald Trump wherever they could. For a moment, they thought they might get close enough in one of the Florida races, not to win, but to embarrass the president. That didn’t happen. Then, in Wisconsin, they thought they might be able to attack Trump by attacking Elon Musk, who parachuted in to campaign for the conservative candidate. That turned out to be a big success for Democrats.
First, the Florida races. The bottom line is the Republican candidates won by double digits. In the 6th District, the GOP’s Randy Fine won by 14 points, and in the 1st District, Republican Jimmy Patronis won by 15. From the Democratic perspective, neither winning Republican came close to matching Trump’s 30-point margin of victory in those districts last November. But no realistic analyst would expect an April special election to match Trump’s 2024 victory. Fine and Patronis did what they needed to do.
Now, the question is what, if any, predictive value the two races will have for the 2026 midterm elections. Who knows? Democrats will concede that, no, they didn’t pick up districts Trump won by 30 points. But what about districts Trump won by 10 points? Or 5? Democrats will predict that those House districts, currently represented by Republicans, will be in danger in 2026. Of course, a lot will happen between now and then.
In addition, Republicans face the grim prospect that presidents almost always lose House seats in midterm elections. First-term presidents and second-term presidents, too. Go all the way back to the 1930s, and there are only two examples of presidents picking up seats in midterm elections. One was in 2002, when first-term George W. Bush picked up seats in the wartime aftermath of the 9/11 attacks. The other was in 1998, when second-term Bill Clinton picked up seats when voters rejected Republicans who were pursuing impeachment in the Lewinsky scandal. Every other president lost seats.
Trump, of course, is in a unique position. He is serving his second term, but it is not a consecutive second term. He clearly benefited, in both politics and policy, from being out of office for a while. Maybe he will have a better time with the 2026 midterm elections than he did in 2018, when Republicans lost 40 seats. On the other hand, Trump has almost no seats to lose, given the GOP’s super narrow margin in the House. We’ll see, but keeping the House will be hard for Republicans.
Then, there is Wisconsin, where liberal Supreme Court candidate Susan Crawford defeated conservative opponent Brad Schimel by a larger-than-expected 10 points. Not too long ago, the race appeared to be mostly about abortion. Watch the March 12 debate, and the first and longest segment was about abortion. The argument played out along the usual lines, with Crawford suggesting Schimel wanted to outlaw all abortions and Schimel playing defense. Abortion remained a huge part of the campaign until the end, and it’s entirely possible Crawford would have won had that been the only issue.
But money in politics was also an issue in a race in which the two sides together spent about $100 million — the most expensive judicial contest in history. There was the usual suspect, George Soros, pouring money into Crawford’s side, and some conservative usual suspects pouring money into Schimel’s side. And then, Elon Musk got involved in a way that overshadowed everybody else.
First, Musk gave more money to Schimel’s side, about $20 million, than any other contributor in the race. And then Musk made attention-getting, over-the-top statements. Referring to the fact that the race would determine the future of House redistricting in Wisconsin, Musk said, “What’s happening on Tuesday is a vote for which party controls the U.S. House of Representatives — that is why it is so significant. And whichever party controls the House to a significant degree controls the country, which then steers the course of Western civilization. I feel like this is one of those things that may not seem that it’s going to affect the entire destiny of humanity, but I think it will.”
That’s pretty heavy. Then, Musk attracted a lot of attention by giving away two $1 million checks to supporters in what opponents called an illegal lottery, but the courts allowed it to go forward. Then, Musk traveled to Wisconsin and wore a cheesehead hat in front of a huge American flag at a rally in Green Bay. Everything Musk did received extensive media coverage, as it was intended to do.
Democrats quickly pivoted to make Musk the central target of their campaign. Here is the beginning of one pro-Crawford ad: “Attacking Social Security. Cutting Medicaid and cancer research. Dismantling the Department of Education. Elon Musk is out of control, and now the power-hungry billionaire is unloading millions to buy the Wisconsin Supreme Court.”
And so on. The race became so focused on the Trump-supporting billionaire that Democrats could credibly argue it was a referendum on Musk, on the Department of Government Efficiency, and on Trump. Each day fired up the anti-Trump resistance even more. The result was a 10-point victory for Crawford in a race that many on the conservative side thought would be within a point or two.
After the results were known, Robby Soave, an editor for Reason, commented, “My God, the liberal derangement over Elon Musk really is something. The Wisconsin election was NOT a referendum on this man. Republicans have a low-propensity voter problem, and all the money in the world can’t literally buy elections (Democrats are always shocked to learn this.)” A short time later, Chuck Ross of the Washington Free Beacon responded, “Musk is solely responsible for creating this impression, whether it’s right or wrong. He decided to get heavily, heavily involved in this off-cycle race, portrayed its outcome in apocalyptic terms, and used questionable tactics to persuade his side to vote.”
Indeed he did. What appears to have happened is that Musk, who has had extraordinary, historic success building cars and rockets, now believes himself to be an extraordinary political campaigner, too. It is not difficult to see how he got that idea. He had a lot of success campaigning for Trump in 2024. But perhaps Musk should have considered that the 2024 success had more to do with Donald Trump than with Elon Musk. Musk cannot transfer that political mojo to other races that do not feature Trump.
Wisconsin proved that. It might be hard to tell the world’s richest man to stay in his lane, but the president of the United States can, and should, do it.
So, that is what happened on Tuesday. Republicans won in Florida, and Democrats won in Wisconsin. The elections won’t determine the future course of anything, but on balance, you’d have to say the results were more worrisome for Republicans. And now, after that brief distraction, the focus of the political world shifts back to the Trump White House.