Two years after Wisconsin was subject to the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, the ideological leaning of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is yet again in the hands of voters in the state’s April election.
Dane County Judge Susan Crawford, a liberal, will face former Wisconsin Attorney General conservative Brad Schimel after liberal-leaning Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced in 2024 that she would step down from the state’s high court. The general election is April 1 and the winner will serve a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
‘Historic’ donations already pouring in
The state’s 2023 Supreme Court race was the most expensive judicial race ever, with both campaigns spending a combined $56 million on the race. Liberals secured a majority on the court with Justice Janet Protasiewicz’s victory in 2023 over former Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly.
If Crawford were to win the race, liberal-leaning justices would retain control of the high court until at least 2028. Two conservative justices are set to be on the ballot for reelection in 2026 and 2027.
The race is set to be expensive again, as donor groups have already given each candidate thousands in cash. Crawford has raised nearly $3 million through the end of 2024, due in part to a $1 million donation from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Crawford described herself as a “common sense” candidate.
“As a prosecutor, attorney, and judge, I’ve always been guided by the same basic values of right and wrong that I learned growing up in Chippewa Falls,” Crawford said. “I’m honored to be on the ballot and grateful to have the historic outpouring of support from so many Wisconsinites in nearly every county.”
Schimel had raised $2 million by the end of 2024. Schimel’s campaign said 98% of their haul came from donors in 70 of Wisconsin’s 72 counties.
“People are tired of judges putting their personal agendas above the law and that’s reflected in the enthusiasm for our campaign,” Schimel said. “I am humbled by the outpouring of support and this historic haul is a testament to the momentum we’re experiencing in every corner of the state.”
Both Crawford and Schimel described their fundraising hauls as “historic,” at this stage of the campaign. Both are raising far more than what candidates had raised in the record-setting 2023 election.
In January 2023, Kelly reported bringing in a total of $313,970 and now-Justice Protasiewicz, who was then a Milwaukee County judge, reported a total of $925,089 in contributions.
Crawford is currently endorsed by Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), all of the current liberal-leaning justices on the Supreme Court, and the Wisconsin Democrats. Schimel has the endorsement of various police associations and sheriffs across the state and the Wisconsin GOP. The increasingly influential Elon Musk also said it was “important to vote Republican” in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, without outright endorsing Schimel.
The first television ads related to the race began airing last week.
Issues to watch
Wisconsin Supreme Court races are technically non-partisan, but candidates campaign on various issues facing the state. The 2023 race was largely centered on abortion as abortion law at the time was unclear following the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 and the state’s default to an 1849 restrictive abortion ban.
While there is not as present an overarching issue in the state this election as abortion was two years ago, the 2025 race could wind up being centered on voting rights and labor rights.
The April ballot will also see a voter ID question after the Republican-controlled Wisconsin state legislature passed a measure to place the question on the ballot. If successful, the measure would enshrine in the state constitution that ID is required to vote. Wisconsin is already one of nine states with strict voter-ID requirements.
Ballot drop boxes have also been a hot-button issue in the state since 2020 when allies of President Donald Trump promoted baseless claims that ballot drop boxes were not secure and urged their voters to only vote in person on Election Day that year.
Drop boxes wound up in front of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which originally outlawed them in 2022 when it had a conservative lean, but the newly liberal-leaning court overturned that ruling in 2024, giving them the green light ahead of the 2024 election.
Act 10, a 13-year-old Wisconsin law that sharply curtailed the bargaining rights of most public employees and eroded the power of unions, is also likely to face the high court in the coming months or years. It was recently overturned by a Dane County official, who ruled that certain provisions of Act 10 were unconstitutional.
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The ruling built on a previous ruling that found Act 10 violated the equal protection clause in the Wisconsin Constitution because it allowed certain unions, notably those representing police, firefighters, and other public safety workers, to bargain collectively with the state while removing those rights from other public employees, most notably teachers.
The original passage of the law in 2011 barred public sector unions from negotiating over anything other than pay raises, which were tied to the rate of inflation. The law had withstood numerous legal challenges until that ruling.
