One of the first attack ads launched by a Elon Musk-backed group in the hotly contested state Supreme Court race has landed with a resounding thud.
That’s because the ad that Building America’s Future is currently running on social media doesn’t feature Susan M. Crawford, the liberal Dane County judge running for the high court against conservative Brad Schimel.
Rather, the digital ad has a large photo of Susan P. Crawford, a law school professor at Harvard University. It appears Building America’s Future lifted her picture from her Wikipedia profile. A digital ad from the Elon Musk-backed group Building America’s Future depicts the wrong Susan Crawford — the photo is of Harvard professor Susan P. Crawford, not Susan M. Crawford, the Dane County judge running for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
“Susan Crawford: Wrong for Wisconsin,” the ad says.
Ok, but which Crawford?
Perhaps, more accurately, it should read, “Wrong Susan Crawford for Wisconsin.”
The two women look alike to some degree. They are both middle-age women with brown hair. One was born in 1963, and the other two years later.
But that’s no excuse for this rookie mistake by the out-of-state political nonprofit, which is currently spending more than $1.5 million on TV ads in Wisconsin. Funded by a dozen individual and corporate backers, the group has spent more than $100 million on races around the country over the past four years.
Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford announced she run for Wisconsin Supreme Court in the spring of 2025.
The Wall Street Journal reported last fall that Musk — CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — became the group’s largest donor in 2022. As a political nonprofit, Building America’s Future is not required to list the names of its contributors.
Records show the faulty digital ad has been running on Facebook and Instagram since Thursday, with an estimated audience of 100,000 to 500,000 people at a cost of up to $3,000, according to numbers from Meta, owner of the two social media platforms.
Officials with Building America’s Future did not return calls.
At a campaign event in Cambridge, the real Susan Crawford said she had seen the digital ad by the outsider group. The winner of the April 1 election between Schimel and Crawford will determine the ideological direction of the high court.
“It just says volumes about them trying to charge into a state of Wisconsin race without even knowing who the candidate is,” Crawford said Sunday.
Her campaign put out a statement blasting the mistake.
“These shameful attack ads from Elon Musk and Brad Schimel are a fraud from start to finish, even using an obviously incorrect photo that they falsely claim is Judge Crawford.…Maybe an audit is needed of the staff at Musk’s shady far-right group,” said Crawford spokesman Derrick Honeyman, referring to Musk’s work slicing and dicing the federal government as part of the White House’s Department of Government Efficiency.
This isn’t the first unforced error of the campaign.
Earlier, the Schimel campaign acknowledged that it digitally altered a photo of his opponent because the campaign felt Crawford should look “ashamed” in the attack ad. Crawford’s campaign filed a complaint claiming Schimel’s team may have used artificial intelligence in doctoring the photo, a possible violation of a new state law that mandates disclosure in AI-manipulated political ads.
Schimel’s team has said the photo was “edited” but not using AI.
Last month, the Wisconsin Examiner reported the Schimel campaign touted the support of Chippewa County Sheriff Travis Hakes in a television ad, even though Hakes’ county board voted “no confidence” in him after he was accused of sexually harassment.
This latest gaffe is not tied to either campaign.
It comes as a number of conservative groups have hit the airwaves in support of Schimel. In all, Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce, Fair Courts America and Building America’s Future have bought some $7 million worth of airtime in Wisconsin’s five TV markets in recent days.
In addition, America PAC, which is funded by Musk, has reported that it is spending $1 million on voter outreach in the state to help out Schimel.
So far, Crawford’s campaign has raised a total of $7.7 million, including $3 million that came from the state Democratic Party. Crawford worked for a Democratic governor and has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin and Wisconsin’s AFL-CIO.
Schimel’s campaign has brought in $5.1 million, including nearly $1.7 million from the state Republican Party. He is a former Republican attorney general who is currently a Waukesha County judge.
The entry of the two Musk groups prompted Crawford to tweet last week, “Elon Musk is buying off Brad Schimel.”
But Schimel responded by pointing out that liberal megadonor George Soros had given $1 million to the state Democratic Party, money that was then transferred to Crawford’s campaign.
Speaking at the Marquette University Law School last week, Schimel initially said he saw a difference between the Soros and Musk contributions. But he then conceded, “It’s happening on both sides.”
“Ultimately, the only answer to (the outside spending) is that the individual running for office — and frankly, this applies to all offices for the judicial or legislative or executive branch — you can’t be for sale,” Schimel said. “People want to support you. It should be they’re supporting you because they like the things that you stand for, not because they’re buying some result.”