“I’m honestly shocked. I thought we had it in the bag. I thought Musk was gonna be an asset for this race. People love Trump, but maybe they don’t love everybody he supports. Maybe I have blinders on.”

— Pam Van Handel, Chair of the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s Outagamie County, quoted by Politico.

“I want to emphasize what Cory Booker did over the last 24 hours may have changed the course of political history. I watched a lot of it. I listened to words. I listened to phrases. How he presents himself did criticize Donald Trump. Of course he did. But he struck the kind of tone that grassroots Democrats are looking for. He gave them a reason to fight. He gave them a reason to stand up and say, this is my country too. Of course, every Republican watching will say, this is nonsense.  But he is not speaking just to Republicans, he’s speaking to Americans, and what I saw over the last 25 hours absolutely blew me away. And just as you sometimes make projections or predictions, I’m gonna do one right here. That speech puts Cory Booker as one of the leaders for the Democratic Party for 2028.”

— GOP pollster Frank Luntz, on NewsNation.

Playbook: “In truth, Dems had been desperate to make yesterday’s elections all about Musk, who has several significant drawbacks in his unlikely new role as GOP election figurehead. They include dismal personal poll ratings, unfathomable wealth and a tendency to talk about Social Security as if he’d quite like to give it the chainsaw treatment.”

“But Musk played right into Dems’ hands — plowing not just millions of dollars into the race in Wisconsin, but huge amounts of personal and political capital, making himself the most visible GOP campaigner on the election trail.”

New York Times: “Nobody expended more political capital in the Wisconsin Supreme Court contest than Mr. Musk, with the possible exception of the candidates. He invested at least $25 million to elect Judge Schimel, posted about it seemingly nonstop on his social media platform, gave money to voters who signed a petition or posted photos in front of polling places and came to the state for a rally where he handed out a pair of $1 million checks.”

“And in the end, Judge Schimel lost by just a little bit less than the last conservative candidate for the court, who was all but abandoned by Republican donors two years ago.”

CNN: “Musk’s high-profile gamble – and loss – in Wisconsin raises questions about the effectiveness of his money and brand moving forward as he works to help Republicans next year attempt to buck the trend of the president’s party losing ground in the midterms.”