A week out from Wisconsin Supreme Court race, finance numbers reach stratosphere

Buoyed by donations from billionaires and out-of-state donors, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race has entered a new level of spending that experts say could reach $100 million by the time it’s all said and done.

The campaign for liberal candidate Susan Crawford announced Monday it has raised $24 million since the Dane County judge entered the race last summer. That includes $17 million since early February.

While full details of the fundraising haul were not yet available, a late filing report covering more than $1.2 million of the funds showed more than $687,000 in in-kind donations from the state Democratic Party. The report also showed four- and five-figure donations from people across the country, including the actor Kevin Bacon.

In a late filing report of its own, the campaign for conservative candidate Brad Schimel received about $1.2 million from the state Republican Party.

Both candidates are benefitting from a state fundraising law that allows people and organizations to donate unlimited amounts to state political parties, even as the individual donation cap is $20,000.

It’s helped Crawford’s campaign bring in far more than what Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s campaign raised in the same time period two years ago. At the time, the Protasiewicz fundraising haul was also seen as an unprecedented sum for a springtime judiciary election.

This time around, the stakes are similar, as backers of both Schimel and Crawford vie for ideological control of the swing state’s high court. But dynamics have changed as Schimel has accepted money from the Republican Party, which former Justice Dan Kelly, the conservative candidate from two years ago, declined to do.

Much of the spending for this year’s race has come from groups, rather than the candidates. Schimel is benefitting from at least $11 million in spending by political action committees with ties to Elon Musk. He also received an endorsement from President Donald Trump over the weekend.

And Musk gave $2 million to the Republican Party of Wisconsin last week, as first reported by WisPolitics.

Crawford, too, has billionaire backers. George Soros, Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker and LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman have all previously donated to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which has transferred funds to her campaign.