Exclusive: Big money plan eyes new way to push states further right
“It is not enough just to elect Republican majorities in the states if those legislators are constantly going to be overruled by the courts,” RSLC President Edith Jorge-Tuñón said in a January memo to investors, shared with Raw Story.
“Investing in state judicial races along with state legislative races will continue to be our recipe for driving states in a more conservative direction.”
Democrats have been bracing for Republicans’ “judicial approach” to enacting Project 2025 — the policy plan for a second Trump administration produced by a hard-right think tank, the Heritage Foundation — said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, which works to elect Democrats at the state level.
“Republicans have deeply impacted the partisan nature of our courts,” Williams said.
“They've stacked the [U.S.] Supreme Court, so they've got a federal path, and now in battleground states, they are looking to secure a pathway through the courts.”
Political parties and special interest groups are increasingly recognizing that state supreme courts are where fights on issues such as abortion access, redistricting and voter rights will play out, said Douglas Keith, senior counsel, democracy, at the Brennan Center for Justice, a nonpartisan nonprofit.
Keith said the RSLC had been “fairly open” about the objective of its Judicial Fairness Initiative: to “ensure that when those policies were litigated, they went before friendlier courts.”
There isn’t an equal initiative on the left, Keith said, but in terms of fundraising for state supreme court races, there’s “something closer to parity.”
“The right used to vastly outspend groups on the left in these races,” Keith said.
Watchdogs anticipate state parties, billionaires and dark money groups will increasingly invest in state supreme court justices who will make “critical decisions” in the next redistricting cycle, which “could potentially tip the balance of power in the House of Representatives,” said Aaron Scherb, senior director of legislative affairs at Common Cause, a nonpartisan group.
“Big money in politics can have a corrosive influence on elections, in general, and especially in judicial races, that can call into question the impartiality of judges once they're elected because in many cases donors are not donating out of the goodness of their heart,” Scherb said.
“They want something in return for their big donations. I think when we have tens of millions, if not more, of dollars spent in judicial elections, it can potentially undermine the impartiality and legitimacy of future rulings.”
With the U.S. Supreme Court’s 6-3 conservative majority locked in, state supreme courts are natural places for big donors to invest.
“Because there's not expected to be a vacancy on the U.S. Supreme Court in the immediate future, I think [conservative legal activist] Leonard Leo and the Federalist Society and other kind of shadowy, dark money groups I think will certainly look at how they can throw their weight around at the state supreme court level,” Scherb said.
“We certainly saw that with Elon Musk and spending in the Wisconsin race, so I think we'll see that pattern replicated in supreme court races around the country.”
High-stakes elections
The RSLC committed to spending seven figures in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania supreme court elections this year, calling Wisconsin the “most urgent race on our calendar.”
“State supreme court races in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in 2025 will determine map-drawing at the federal and state level after our next redistricting cycle and for years to come,” Jorge-Tuñón said in her memo.
The organization contributed $2 million for advertising spending in Wisconsin, as Judges Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel faced off in what became a $105 million race, the most expensive judicial election in U.S. history.
In 2021-22, $100.8 million was spent in total for state supreme court elections, according to the Brennan Center. In 2019-20, the figure was $97 million.
Crawford, the Democratic choice, ultimately beat Musk-backed Schimel by 10 points in what Williams called a “complete rebuff of this idea that Republicans can buy a seat on the court.”
More than $46 million was spent on TV ads supporting Crawford and more than $54 million on ads supporting Schmiel, the Brennan Center said.
Outside of campaign committees, top spenders were Musk’s America PAC, which spent $12.7 million backing Schmiel, and a progressive PAC, A Better Wisconsin Together, which spent $8.3 million supporting Crawford.
Democrat-backed Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Judge Susan Crawford speaks after her win. REUTERS/Vincent Alban
Among billionaire donors, Musk spent at least $20 million while shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein spent $8 million backing Schmiel. George Soros and Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker gave $2 million and $1.5 million, respectively, to the Wisconsin Democratic Party supporting Crawford.
Wisconsin is preparing for another “particularly vicious” supreme court election in 2026, when “conservatives will go all out to protect Rebecca Bradley,” an incumbent justice, said Jay Heck, executive director of Common Cause Wisconsin.
The state will have supreme court elections each year through 2029.
“The supreme court, which used to be considered a nonpartisan office, is now very partisan and very polarized,” Heck said.
“That's why we're seeing such an increased turnout in participation, and that's largely driven by the huge amounts of money and the unlimited amounts of money that now the political parties spend in these elections.”
North Carolina Democrats have launched a 2026 reelection campaign for Justice Anita Earls, after a contentious 2024 election in which Republican Jefferson Griffin attempted to have more than 60,000 votes thrown out in his battle with incumbent Democrat Allison Riggs.
Democratic Supreme Court Justice Allison Riggs and Republican challenger Judge Jefferson Griffin. (Courtesy photos)
Six months after the election, Griffin conceded defeat. Riggs won by 734 votes.
“We'll see a lot more money being spent … a lot of negativity, negative campaigning,” said Bob Phillips, executive director of Common Cause North Carolina.
“I do think the Republican Party is chomping at the bit to unleash a pretty tough campaign. Democrats, perhaps, might be doing the same.”
With three liberal Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices’ terms expiring on January 4, 2026, the stakes for the November retention election are “extremely high,” said Democratic Pennsylvania Sen. Vincent Hughes.
Jorge-Tuñón said: “If conservatives have any hope of taking back a majority on the court, at least two of these three justices need to be defeated this fall.”
“If two of them prevail, then conservatives will automatically be locked out of a majority on the court through the 2032 redistricting process.”
Hughes said the Pennsylvania Supreme Court has the power to right “historical injustices in education funding.” He also pointed to how the court heard challenges to presidential election results in 2020, when Trump lost to Joe Biden, cases it “fairly adjudicated in spite of the madness of January 6.”
“Even though [Republicans] suffered a pretty bad loss in Wisconsin,” Hughes said, “we anticipate them learning something from that loss and gearing up in this coming cycle right now.”
Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), 91, chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein 
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) shows reporters spending charts. Photo: Matt Laslo.
Matt Wakulik (left) attended an armed pro-Second Amendment rally at the Virginia legislature in Richmond in January 2020.Anthony Crider
Elon Musk wears a cheese hat as he holds a rally in support of a state