Tech billionaire and adviser to President Trump, Elon Musk, handed out two $1-million cheques, among smaller cash prizes, to Wisconsin voters who pledged to elect a Republican candidate to the state’s Supreme Court during a rally on Sunday.
The Tesla CEO dropped millions of dollars at the event in Green Bay, Wis., in a last-ditch effort to drum up conservative support in what has become the most costly campaign of its kind in U.S. history.
The high-stakes race result could flip the state’s judiciary to Republican, and Musk said he would pay supporters $20 for every voter they recruit between the rally and the election.
He claimed he was spending the money to raise awareness of a race in which liberal Susan Crawford seems to be running ahead of conservative Brad Schimel.
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The state’s Attorney General Josh Kaul attempted to block the giveaway through legal channels, citing a violation of state law that prohibits gifts in exchange for votes, but the state Supreme Court ruled that Musk’s initiative could go ahead.
At the rally on Sunday night, Musk said, “we actually are in serious danger of losing the election,” telling attendees, “we’ve got to pull a rabbit out of a hat.”
The April 1 contest will determine the ideological tilt of the state’s top court as it considers abortion rights, labour rights, and possibly election rules. Technically nonpartisan, the race is seen as an early referendum on Trump in a politically competitive state.
Musk claimed that the court might redraw certain voter districts in a manner that could lead to the loss of Republican seats in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Wisconsin Republicans currently hold an 18-15 majority in the state Senate and a 54-45 majority in the Wisconsin Assembly, and a Liberal leaning supreme court would pose a threat to the state’s political agenda.
Musk, who is also the founder of SpaceX, arrived on stage at Sunday’s rally wearing a hat shaped like a block of cheese, a nod to a state well known for its high-quality manufacturing of the dairy product.
“You need to just drag friends and family to vote on Tuesday,” he told the crowd before being interrupted by people he called “Soros operatives,” in reference to George Soros, a Hungarian-American investor and philanthropist who has given more than $32 billion to charitable organizations through the Open Society Foundations and has become the lynchpin of right-wing conspiracy theories.
In 2021, Soros donated $140 million to election advocacy initiatives and an additional $60 million to similar charities, according to CNBC.
He also pledged $170 million during the 2022 midterms to Democratic candidates and campaigns.
As of last week, groups affiliated with Musk had spent at least $17.5 million to support Schimel, according to New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice — more than one-fifth of the $81 million spent in total on the race.
Musk spent more than $250 million to help elect Trump last year.
— With files from Reuters
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