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People keep telling me that money is the big problem in politics. But if that’s true, how come nobody can ever seem to buy a danged election anymore?

In 1980, then-West Virginia Gov. Jay Rockefeller coolly noted to the press that he was willing to devote whatever millions of dollars of his family’s fortune were necessary to win a second term in a rematch with Republican Arch Moore, the man who had defeated Rockefeller in 1972.

The boast won a reply in bumper-sticker form from Moore’s supporters: “Make him spend it all, Arch.” And while Moore didn’t make him spend it all, Rockefeller did outspend Moore 12 to 1, dumping what would be in today’s dollars $45 or $50 million on the race.

Is that why Rockefeller won by 9 points instead of losing by 9 points, as he did eight years earlier? It may have been that in 1972, Richard Nixon was the only Republican to carry the Mountain State between 1956 and 1984 and had coattails; or that in the first race, Moore was the incumbent and Rockefeller was the challenger, and in the rematch the roles were reversed. But spending what today would be more than $115 for every vote he received surely had to be a good bit of the difference for Rockefeller.

Nor was that Rockefeller the only Rockefeller to figure out that carpetbagging was a value proposition. Unlike his uncle Nelson who stayed in New York, where elections are pricey, Jay’s uncle Winthrop headed out to Arkansas where grandpa John D.’s compounded profits went a lot farther.

So now it’s Teslas instead of Standard Oil, but the impulse remains the same for some of the very rich. Elon Musk, the richest man in America (and therefore the world), tried a similar maneuver in Wisconsin this week, dumping gobs of money and his manic campaign presence into a contest for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Through direct expenditures and his super PACs, it looks like Musk put at least $25 million into an effort to elect Brad Schimel, the state’s former attorney general, to fill the swing seat on the state’s high court. Musk and the Muskovites ran millions in ads, wrote $1 million checks to two young Wisconsin Republicans as “spokespeople” and one of his PACs offered $50 for anyone uploading a photo of a Wisconsin resident outside of a polling place. In West Virginia, when you bought somebody’s vote back in the Kennedy era, it was customary to include a pint of whiskey as a courtesy, so the Wisconsin picture payola represents a step backward for electoral compensation but a great advance in convenience.

Musk’s loud, early entry into the contest, of course, drew in the aspiring election purchasers from the other side. America’s Dairyland overflowed with cash from Democratic billionaires, including Hyatt Hotel heir JB Pritzker, the governor of neighboring Illinois, who has an obvious appetite for even higher office. In all, it looks like the race will have consumed more than $100 million for a single seat on a seven-member court in the 20th biggest state in the union.

Woof.

So what did all that money buy? Wisconsin had an almost identical race with similar stakes in 2023. That time it was a Republican-backed justice who was retiring, so the GOP was trying to maintain control of the court, while this time the roles were reversed. But the result was the same: In both races, the Democratic-backed candidate won by 10 points.

The major difference was that turnout this year was through the roof. An astonishing 520,892 more people voted this time — a 28 percent increase from two years ago.

Musk was explicitly testing the premise of whether he could solve his party’s biggest political problem of the Trump era: what to do about midterms and special elections when the Republicans rely on lower-income, lower propensity voters to fuel presidential victories. Musk is broadly unpopular, but is a beloved celebrity in the very online MAGA world. Could his famous name and deep pockets mobilize the younger and more downscale voters who are unlikely to get jazzed up for a judicial election?

The answer was yes, but, unfortunately for Musk, he also proved to be a powerful motivator for Democrats, too. Turnout went up, but it went up across the board; a very expensive way to get an exact repeat of the election two years ago that cost half as much.

Musk claimed after the loss he expected the Wisconsin effort to fail but that it was worth “

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