Scott Walker on Wisconsin race: Trump voters ‘don’t vote in spring elections’

Former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker (R) brushed off the results from Tuesday’s state Supreme Court race, saying Trump voters often “don’t vote in spring elections.”

“I’ve said this for months. I thought, one, the turnout model was always going to be at the disadvantage of [Brad] Schimel over [Susan] Crawford because there’s about 200,000 voters that voted for Donald Trump last November who just historically don’t vote in spring elections,” Walker said on a panel on CNN.

“And so, part of the reason why we wanted the president and others to be involved was to try and make — connect the dots, to make that connection. And some of that happened, but clearly not enough, if you look at these results,” he continued.

Crawford, the liberal judicial candidate, defeated Schimel, the conservative candidate, by 10 points for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday night. The two were vying for retiring liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley’s seat; Crawford’s win means the high court will remain a 4-3 liberal majority.

The race received outsized national attention given it was seen as the first major test for either party since the November election, with President Trump and Elon Musk supporting Schimel in the technically nonpartisan race.

Some officials said they had seen “unprecedented” turnout in the race, with areas like Milwaukee seeing temporary ballot shortages.

Walker pointed out that Democrats had a sheer fundraising advantage despite Musk’s efforts to even the playing field for Republicans. The ad-tracking firm AdImpact noted Democrats spent $43.1 million in ad spending in the race compared to $34.1 million spent by Republicans.

Republican advertisers had a narrow edge on broadcast, spending $21.4 million compared to Democrats, who spent $19.3 million.

“Obviously, a lot of attention of late to Musk, but if you look at the financial advantage, Crawford’s campaign spent twice as much as I did in my first election for governor,” he added.