{"id":569809,"date":"2026-04-07T13:13:11","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:13:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569809\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T13:13:11","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T13:13:11","slug":"liberals-will-try-to-expand-their-majority-on-the-wisconsin-supreme-court-in-a-tuesday-election","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/569809\/","title":{"rendered":"Liberals will try to expand their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a Tuesday election"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n One year after Elon Musk donned a cheesehead hat<\/a> and unsuccessfully poured millions of his personal fortune into a judicial contest in the state<\/a>, Democrats are hoping to deliver another setback to conservatives in Wisconsin\u2019s Supreme Court election on Tuesday.\n <\/p>\n

\n Conservative judge Maria Lazar and liberal judge Chris Taylor are facing off to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative. The race won\u2019t flip control of the court after liberals last year secured a 4-3 majority<\/a>, but it will determine whether liberals can extend their hold on the state\u2019s highest court, potentially through the end of the decade.\n <\/p>\n

\n The contest has flown under the radar compared to the spring 2025 election that became the most expensive judicial race in US history and offered Democrats a jolt of momentum early in President Donald Trump\u2019s second term.\n <\/p>\n

\n A liberal win Tuesday could have far-reaching implications in a battleground state where competitive midterm elections are underway and a presidential race looms in 2028. Though the election is technically nonpartisan, the contest is also another gauge of Democratic enthusiasm and a test of Republicans\u2019 ability to turn out voters when Trump is not on the ballot.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt is critical to make sure that we have a pro-democracy majority on our bench, not just through the midterm, but through the next presidential election, and all the way through 2030,\u201d said Devin Remiker, the chair of Wisconsin\u2019s Democratic Party.\n <\/p>\n

\n Top Democrats, including several with eyes on potential 2028 runs, have looked for ways to boost Taylor\u2019s campaign. Former US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel hit the battleground state last month while former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy have signed fundraising e-mails for Taylor, a spokesperson for the liberal judge said.\n <\/p>\n

\n Eric Holder, who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, campaigned in the state in the final stretch while former President Barack Obama posted an online call to turn out for Taylor<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\"The<\/p>\n

\n A Marquette Law School poll<\/a> conducted in mid-March found more than half of registered voters (53%) were undecided about the race, with 23% supporting Taylor while 17% favored Lazar.\n <\/p>\n

\n Taylor has held a significant financial edge over Lazar throughout the campaign. The liberal judge, who entered the race in May, raised more than $5.6 million, while Lazar brought in nearly $900,000 since she entered the race in the fall, according to campaigns filing reports.\n <\/p>\n

\n Spending in this race has topped $6 million, according to data from AdImpact, far below the more than $80 million spent in digital and TV spots in last year\u2019s nationalized race which drew in millions from Musk and heavy spending from outside groups. Most of the spending in this year\u2019s contest has come from Taylor and her allies.\n <\/p>\n

\n Mark Graul, a GOP strategist who has managed state judicial races in the past, said that money disparity is a warning sign for conservatives.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIf Judge Taylor is successful, all you have to do is point to the tremendous resource advantage her campaign has had in this race,\u201d said Graul.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nathan Conrad, a spokesperson for Lazar\u2019s campaign, acknowledged the financial challenge facing her run, adding, \u201cWe are focusing laser pointed on where our dollars are going and making sure we\u2019re hitting the target voters that we know need to hear Maria\u2019s message as often as possible before Election Day.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

Disputes over abortion rights and voter ID<\/p>\n

\n Taylor, a state appeals court judge from Dane County, spent nine years as a Democratic legislator in the state assembly and was an attorney and policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Lazar, a state appeals court judge from Waukesha County, was formerly an assistant state attorney general who defended former GOP Gov. Scott Walker\u2019s Act 10<\/a>, which effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers, and Republican redistricting efforts in the state in 2011.\n <\/p>\n

\n In their lone debate on Thursday night, Lazar and Taylor sparred over abortion rights months after the liberal majority on the court struck down the state\u2019s 176-year-old abortion ban<\/a> that conservatives argued reactivated after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.\n <\/p>\n

\n Lazar said the Supreme Court moved legal authority over abortion to the states and said she would honor Wisconsin\u2019s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, which she labeled a \u201ccompromise.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think that it falls within the parameters of where people in the state believe it should be,\u201d said Lazar. \u201cAnd if they don\u2019t, the answer is to go to the legislature and the governor, not the courts.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Taylor, who has run campaign ads featuring Lazar saying the Dobbs decision was \u201cvery wise,\u201d said her opponent\u2019s position was \u201ctragic.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cIt\u2019s not been very wise for victims of rape and incest who now live in states where abortion has been outlawed. It\u2019s not very wise for women who have lost their lives in states because they couldn\u2019t get help when a pregnancy went wrong,\u201d Taylor said. \u201cMy opponent is going to take us backwards. I will take us forwards.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Lazar grew visibly agitated, saying \u201cThat\u2019s absolutely ridiculous.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI have never wanted women injured, ever, ever, ever. I have always said that the health and life of the mother is the most important thing,\u201d said Lazar.\n <\/p>\n

\n The two candidates also weighed in on election integrity matters just days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to crack down on mail-in voting<\/a> and as he pushes congressional Republicans to pass nationwide restrictions<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n

\n Taylor said she is \u201cvery concerned that we might have efforts to suppress the vote\u201d and argued \u201cthis is why we need a strong Supreme Court that\u2019s going to hold the federal government accountable.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Lazar said she would uphold the state\u2019s voter ID law, which Wisconsin voters approved last year, but added she does not agree with all the efforts underway on the federal level, nothing that early and mail-in voting is \u201cresponsible\u201d and \u201cnecessary.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cI think it\u2019s important that we tell people in the state of Wisconsin that our elections are safe, they\u2019re secure and that their votes count,\u201d she added.\n <\/p>\n

\n Nearly six years after Trump\u2019s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential results, Lazar also sought to put some distance between herself and people who refuse to acknowledge Trump\u2019s loss that year, saying, \u201cJoe Biden did win.\u201d\n <\/p>\n

\n Though the state has swung between political parties on the presidential level, a liberal winning streak in the state Supreme Court races began in 2020. Liberals reclaimed the majority in 2023 and extended their control of their court in last year\u2019s contest when liberal Justice Susan Crawford beat conservative Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points.\n <\/p>\n

\"Susan<\/p>\n

\n If Taylor wins on Tuesday, liberals would have a 5-2 majority and may have the ability to cement their control even more next year. Last month, conservative Justice Annette Ziegler announced her retirement, putting another court seat in play in 2027.\n <\/p>\n

\n In her announcement last summer that she was retiring from the state Supreme Court, Bradley warned of an \u201calarming shift\u201d towards \u201cbitter partisanship\u201d on the court.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cThe conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it,\u201d Bradley wrote.\n <\/p>\n

\n Graul, who ran Ziegler\u2019s races for the Supreme Court, said successful conservative candidates in the past have fit a similar profile \u2013 judges with prior experience as prosecutors and strong backing from law enforcement \u2013 which he believes Lazar embodies.\n <\/p>\n

\n But he argued conservatives in judicial contests also will need to focus on winning back suburban voters, particularly in the southeast portion of the state.\n <\/p>\n

\n \u201cWe\u2019ve got to figure out a way to communicate to those voters in a way that appeals to their sense of fairness,\u201d he said.\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One year after Elon Musk donned a cheesehead hat and unsuccessfully poured millions of his personal fortune into…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":569810,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[18],"tags":[23,3,21,19,22,20,25,24],"class_list":["post-569809","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-united-states","tag-america","tag-news","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569809","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=569809"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/569809\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/569810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=569809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=569809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=569809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}