He brought his billionaire friend, a million dollar check and a Packer's Cheesehead hat. The pastor prayed for him. Superfan asked him to follow X.
Elon Musk is the star of a 2,000-person rally on Sunday night in Wisconsin, for conservative candidates in the state's judicial race, which is ostensibly monitored – just 36 hours before votes begin on Election Day. Of course he was.
The billionaire Muss looked like a candidate for the rally, putting himself in front of the final stretch of the election, attacking two rivals at each other.
The moment the campaign closes is extremely choreographed. Musk's visit to support Justice Shimmel on the eve of the election was voluntary. Judge Simel did not even attend the event. Musk himself appeared to be the face of those closing discussions and seemed comfortable living with the consequences.
Obviously, no one had forced Musk to visit the state. Despite pleading from Wisconsin Republicans, President Trump refused to make a similar trip. I felt that perhaps race could lose more than win, and that the most prominent boosters could be tagged with accusations.
Republican Gov. Scott Walker was among those hoping to visit Trump. He said in an interview that Musk believes he has some insulation from credibility and pointing politics.
“He doesn't care,” Walker said. “Another side of this consultant is different from all of these people on either side who don't want to be nailed down as losers.”
The Stakes are calling for all sorts of intervention to hear Musk communicate that.
A few weeks ago, Musk had sporadically supported Judge Simel, but his remarks about race became existential. Musk and the alliance group have spent more than $20 million to support him, and he has made Tuesday's election nothing more than an apocalyptic condition.
“What's happening on Tuesday is the party's vote to control the U.S. House of Representatives, which is why it's so important,” Musk said he mentioned the important role the courts can play in changing constituencies. “And the party that has a great deal of control over which party controls the country, and that pilots the course of Western civilization. I think this is one of those things you might not think will affect the entire fate of humanity, but I think it will.”
Green Bay's highly-produced town hall already boasts more Packers equipment than usual ahead of hosting next month's NFL Draft. Republicans believe the key to victory is Walker's statement of nearly 200,000 Trump voters, which he believes is unlikely to vote in the monthly and year-end elections. Musk is popular among conservatives despite the rage he is stirring up among liberals.
Some of the Green Bay crowds said they wanted to bring closer to those wearing musk tools and had followed for over a decade. “I'm here for Musk,” said Michael Lavalbera, 25, who installs solar panels, in a hat he bought online. Retirement John Rossner, wearing another musk hat with a boring company name, said he was here “basically to meet Elon,” calling this moment “the closest I'll reach him.”
Robert Cour, an 81-year-old retired, sat in an empty queue next to the auditorium when he was injured in the fall, said he decided to make Musk's event the first political rally of his life. The Trump rally said it was “not that accurate.”
“I didn't need it. This made me feel like I needed to be here,” Cour said. “I support masks more than anyone else in politics.”
Musk is known for his own beliefs and clearly enjoys meeting voters who believe him. For those present, he is even more of a hero than last time Musk took part in a similar Rockstar Tour in Pennsylvania five months ago.
This is the flipside of the denunciation game. If Justice Schimel wins, Musk's activities will certainly be given a huge amount of credit.
Other Republican groups expected to spend money to support conservative candidates. Musk's super PAC is playing an ambitious ground game, with the nonprofit that Musk previously supported spent millions of dollars on television ads that Shimmel claimed to have helped fill the gap. Musk's defenders like Walker believe that the race has only been more likely to win thanks to Musk's spending.
Musk also brought publicity. A million-dollar sweepstakes to sign the petition – and a questionable plan to hold prizes only to Wisconsin residents who have already voted for 12 hours has broken the saturation of the state's news cycle. (At the very beginning of the rally, the state Supreme Court refused to suspend the prize.)
And, like he did in Pennsylvania last year's general election, Musk on Sunday brought out oversized checks to hand out the winners. He drove out one of his close friends, Antonio Gracias, and gave a presentation on what Gracias called an “outrageous” fraud in Social Security. And that was after he filmed the stage and then signed and threw it into the crowd, wearing a foam cheesehead hat.
The showman does this all despite acknowledging that Judge Simel is highly likely to lose. Headgear once again became the best of his heart when Musk concluded his remarks before he began a massive Q&A session.
“We have to pull the rabbit out of our hats. The next level,” he said, saying Judge Simel is standing in the betting forecast market. “We really need to have a steady stream of rabbits from the hat. It's like an arc of rabbits flying through the air and landing at the voting booth.”
