Voters in Wisconsin and northwest Georgia head to the polls Tuesday to decide a pair of races that will provide further clues about how the political environment is shaping up heading into this fall\u2019s midterm elections.<\/p>\n
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In battleground Wisconsin, liberals are aiming to further expand their majority<\/a> on the state Supreme Court and extend their recent winning streak. And in the runoff election in Georgia\u2019s conservative 14th Congressional District, Republicans are favored to hold on to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene\u2019s seat, while Democrats are hoping to at least make it competitive. <\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s contest between the Democratic-backed Chris Taylor and the Republican-backed Maria Lazar to fill a seat held by retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley has flown under the radar nationally compared to last year\u2019s Wisconsin Supreme Court race, <\/a>when the majority was at stake. That election ended up as the most expensive state judicial race in history after tech billionaire Elon Musk, who was an adviser to President Donald Trump at the time, poured in millions of dollars.<\/p>\n Taylor has held significant fundraising and ad spending advantages<\/a> over Lazar throughout the campaign. A Marquette University Law School pol<\/a>l last month showed Taylor leading Lazar among likely voters, but that a plurality was undecided. Still, Democratic leaders in the state have said that early voting data, as well as the fact that the liberal candidate has won the last three Supreme Court races by double digits, has left them feeling optimistic. <\/p>\n A win by Taylor, an appeals court judge who was formerly a Democratic state legislator and a policy director for Wisconsin\u2019s Planned Parenthood group, would expand the liberal majority on the technically nonpartisan court to 5-2, and put conservatives out of reach of the majority for years to come. Taylor has largely focused her campaign on her support for reproductive rights<\/a>, as well as economic issues such as rising costs<\/a> and cuts to food assistance programs.<\/p>\n Lazar, an appeals court judge who worked in the administration of former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, has defended her anti-abortion positions and has focused on contrasting her judicial career with her opponent\u2019s history as a Democratic lawmaker.<\/p>\n But Democrats are once again looking to capitalize on anti-Trump fervor in a nonpresidential election. Democratic and Democratic-backed candidates have won 18 of the last 23 statewide races in Wisconsin, though Trump won the state narrowly in both 2016 and 2024. <\/p>\n The Marquette University poll<\/a> showed that 56% of registered voters in Wisconsin disapproved of Trump\u2019s job performance, the highest share it recorded during the president\u2019s two terms in office. <\/p>\n To help boost turnout down the stretch, Democrats brought in former Attorney General Eric Holder last week to campaign for Taylor, who spent her final week barnstorming across the state. In addition, former President Barack Obama endorsed Taylor.<\/p>\n In an interview last week, Taylor summarized her closing pitch to voters by saying that, \u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s ever been more important in my lifetime to have a strong court that\u2019s going to stand up for our rights and freedoms, stand up for our democracy, our elections, and make sure that we are resisting this overreach we\u2019re seeing from the federal government.\u201d <\/p>\n When asked why she\u2019d emphasized issues like abortion rights so frequently on the campaign trail, she replied that, \u201cvoters deserve to know what my values are.\u201d<\/p>\n Lazar, who\u2019s also spent the last few weeks crisscrossing the state, acknowledged during an interview last week that she\u2019d known the race for her \u201cwas an uphill battle,\u201d but added that, \u201cI just honestly believe that people in my state really want a an independent and good justice on this court, and that\u2019s what I will be.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think the key here is that you\u2019re electing a judge, not a politician,\u201d Lazar said.<\/p>\n Democrats are hoping<\/a> another state Supreme Court victory will provide a jolt of momentum heading into a governor\u2019s contest this fall. A crowded field of Democratic candidates is competing to succeed Gov. Tony Evers<\/a>, who is retiring, and take on GOP front-runner Rep. Tom Tiffany in November.<\/p>\n Polls close in Wisconsin at 9 p.m. ET.<\/p>\n Georgia’s 14th Congressional District<\/p>\n Republican prosecutor Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris advanced to a special runoff election for Greene\u2019s deep-red Georgia seat after no candidate in the crowded all-party primary field earned a majority of the vote last month.<\/p>\n Harris earned slightly more of the vote in that first round, but the total Republican vote was split among 17 candidates. Altogether, those Republicans got about 60% of the vote in the March election, and Fuller enters the Tuesday runoff as the favorite in a district Trump carried by 37 percentage points in the 2024 presidential race.<\/p>\n Harris, a retired Army brigadier general and cattle rancher, raised $6.4 million this election cycle and launched ads knocking \u201cout of touch politicians\u201d from both parties who \u201cdon\u2019t understand how difficult things are for hardworking Georgians.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"Shawn](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/260401-Harris-Fuller-split-gk-531f3e.jpg\")
Shawn Harris; Clay Fuller.Getty Images<\/p>\n