Wisconsin is a closely divided state politically. Five of the past seven presidential elections have been decided by under 30,000 votes. The state has a conservative Republican senator (Ron Johnson) and a progressive Democratic senator (Tammy Baldwin). If there is any kind of tilt in Wisconsin, it is toward the Democrats, who have won five of the seven presidential contests since 2000, four of the last six regular gubernatorial elections (including the past two contests), and currently hold most statewide offices. Yet the eight-member House delegation includes six Republicans and just two Democrats. As US Representative Mark Pocan (D-WI) says, “Wisconsin is a purple state, however, our current congressional district maps do not reflect that.”

Why would a state that regularly splits almost evenly in voting for the presidency deliver 75 percent of its US House seats to the party that, more often than not in recent years, has lost statewide contests? The answer is that Republican former Governor Scott Walker and his Republican allies shamelessly gerrymandered the House maps back in 2011 to favor GOP candidates. The district lines changed only minimally after the 2020 Census, even though a Democratic governor had defeated and replaced Walker in 2018. That Democratic governor, Tony Evers, was forced to work with a Republican-controlled legislature that was not open to a process that would produce fair maps.

Were the next Supreme Court to rule against Wisconsin’s gerrymandered congressional maps, legal experts and political observers argue that it could force the legislature to cooperate with the governor—as happened when the court considered gerrymandered legislative maps in 2023. After fair lines were adopted by the legislature and approved by the governor, Democrats picked up 10 state Assembly seats and four state Senate seats in 2024. The Democrats did not win because the new maps were gerrymandered in their favor. Rather, the Democrats recruited capable candidates, ran on important issues, and won competitive races.

Musk is right about one thing: Republicans have almost no room for error when it comes to keeping the US House. They currently control the chamber by a 218–213 margin. That’s such a close split that New York Representative Elise Stefanik’s nomination to serve as the next US ambassador to the United Nations was recently withdrawn to help the GOP maintain its advantage. (A pair of special elections for Florida US House seats, which will take place on Tuesday, are being closely watched because Democratic wins in the historically Republican districts could further weaken the grip of House Speaker Mike Johnson and his partisan allies. In one of those seats, which had been represented by Michael Waltz before his now controversial appointment by President Donald Trump to serve as national security adviser, polls have suggested that Democrat Josh Weil is running a very strong race. It’s still an uphill climb for the Democrat. But a win for Weil, or even a very close result, could suggest that Republicans are facing more troubles than the prospect of redrawn district lines in Wisconsin.)

Despite what Musk says, there are no guarantees that redrawn Wisconsin House district maps would create a congressional delegation that is a precise reflection of the state’s partisan divide. New maps might produce the perfect 4–4 split, a 5–3 split favoring Republicans, or a 5–3 advantage for Democrats. Republicans might even find themselves with a 6–2 majority in a mega-wave year. True democracy is unpredictable. But it is pretty unlikely that fair maps would give 75 percent of the Wisconsin seats to the GOP every single time. Instead, redrawn maps could produce a lot more competition in Wisconsin congressional races—for incumbents and challengers from both sides of the political aisle.

At the very least, fair maps would address Wisconsin’s biased map, which Princeton’s Gerrymandering Project, an initiative that reviews district lines across the country, gave an “F” on measures of partisan fairness. An analysis by the Gerrymandering Project found that the maps lock in a “significant Republican advantage.” So why wouldn’t Wisconsinites want to eliminate the bias and draw fair maps that would allow Republicans and Democrats to compete based on the quality of their candidates and their ideas—as opposed to built-in geographic advantages?

Musk doesn’t see it that way. He wants to keep the competition rigged. So the billionaire has poured more than $20 million into an effort to put a partisan Republican on Wisconsin’s high court. If Schimel wins, the court will have a 4–3 right-wing majority, and the current US House district maps will almost assuredly stay in place. That’s fine by Musk, who fears that fair maps might make the Congress more likely to reflect the will of the people—and, thus, upend his agenda.

In order to get his way, Musk is not just trying to buy an election. He’s effectively telling Wisconsinites that they should opt for a gerrymandered future rather than representative democracy.