After $144 Million and Record Turnout, Wisconsin's Third Supreme Court Race in Four Years Draws a Shrug — and Democrats Still Win

Wisconsin holds its third consecutive high-profile Supreme Court election on April 7, 2026, and almost nobody is watching. Liberal Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor is favored to defeat conservative Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar for the seat being vacated by retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley [1][2]. If Taylor wins, the court's liberal majority expands from 4-3 to 5-2 — a margin that would persist through at least 2030.

The contrast with recent cycles is stark. The 2025 race drew 2.35 million voters and $144.5 million in total spending, making it the most expensive judicial election in American history [3][4]. The 2023 race before it drew 1.8 million voters and roughly $51 million, which was itself a record at the time [5]. This year, early voting is down 60% from 2025 levels, total spending sits below $9 million, and a March Marquette University Law School poll found that only 12% of voters said they had heard "a lot" about the race — down from 40% a year earlier [6][7].

Source: Wisconsin Elections Commission / WPR

Data as of Apr 5, 2026CSV

The Money Collapse

The spending gap between 2025 and 2026 is the single most dramatic data point in this race. Last year, Susan Crawford's campaign raised $28.3 million and Brad Schimel's raised $15.1 million, with outside groups pouring in another $51.4 million [4][8]. Elon Musk alone contributed nearly as much as all four candidates in the 2023 race had spent combined [3].

This year, Taylor has raised roughly $6 million to Lazar's approximately $1 million [1]. Since January 1, Taylor's campaign spent $2.3 million on advertising versus Lazar's $157,000 — a 14-to-1 ratio [2]. Outside groups supporting Taylor spent $1.3 million, while groups backing Lazar spent less than $12,000 [2].

Source: Wisconsin Democracy Campaign / Brennan Center

Data as of Apr 5, 2026CSV

The cost-per-vote math tells a revealing story. In 2025, with $144.5 million spent and 2.35 million votes cast, each vote "cost" roughly $61. In 2023, with $51 million and 1.8 million votes, it was about $28. If the 2026 race draws an estimated 1.1 million votes on $9 million in spending, the cost per vote drops to roughly $8 — less than a fraction of the 2025 figure.

"Conservatives never woke up," a GOP strategist told NBC News. "They never figured out they needed a new page" [2]. Brandon Scholz, former Wisconsin GOP executive director, framed the donor retreat bluntly: "If you win, sure, another check. Who loves to win? Everybody. But that wasn't happening here" [1].

Why the Silence: No Majority, No Mobilization

The structural reason for the quieter race is straightforward: control of the court is not at stake [9][10]. In 2023, Janet Protasiewicz's victory flipped the court from 4-3 conservative to 4-3 liberal for the first time in 15 years. In 2025, Crawford's win defended that majority against a well-funded challenge. This year, even a Lazar victory would leave liberals in the majority — it would merely prevent the margin from widening.

That dynamic has drained urgency from both sides. National donors who treated the 2025 race like a Senate campaign — complete with presidential endorsements, Super Bowl-caliber ad buys, and Trump rallying for Schimel — have largely stayed home [3]. The Brennan Center for Justice noted that by mid-March, outside spending in the 2026 race totaled just $638,000, compared to nearly $25 million at the same point in 2025 [11].

For Republicans, the calculus is particularly grim. Conservative candidates have lost the last three consecutive Wisconsin Supreme Court races, each time by approximately 10 points, even as Trump carried the state by one point in 2024 [2]. The Wisconsin Republican Party chair has acknowledged a "resource issue" as the central obstacle for conservative judicial candidates [2].

What the Court Has Already Decided — and What's Still Coming

The 4-3 liberal majority installed in 2023 has already reshaped Wisconsin law. In July 2025, the court ruled 4-3 in Kaul v. Urmanski that the state's 1849 near-total abortion ban had been "impliedly repealed" by 50 years of subsequent legislation regulating abortion [12][13]. Justice Dallet's majority opinion held that the Legislature's comprehensive modern abortion regulations "were clearly meant as a substitute" for the 19th-century ban — a statutory interpretation ruling that sidestepped constitutional questions [14].

The court also struck down the Legislature's ability to unilaterally block administrative rules in Evers v. Marklein, ruling 4-3 that such power violated separation-of-powers principles [14]. And it unanimously protected the Attorney General's authority to settle civil enforcement cases without legislative committee approval in Kaul v. Wisconsin Legislature [14].

Several high-stakes cases remain in the pipeline for the 2025-26 term and beyond:

Congressional redistricting. Democrats have filed lawsuits arguing Wisconsin's congressional maps — which give Republicans six of eight seats — constitute unconstitutional partisan gerrymanders. A three-judge panel dismissed one such suit in late March 2026, but a second case is scheduled for trial in April 2027 [15][16]. Any appeal would reach the Supreme Court, where a 5-2 liberal majority could prove decisive.

Act 10 and union rights. A challenge to the constitutionality of Governor Scott Walker's landmark 2011 law curtailing public-sector collective bargaining is working its way through appeals. A Dane County circuit court judge already ruled Act 10 unconstitutional in 2024, and the case is expected to eventually reach the Supreme Court [17].

Voting rules. Multiple election-law disputes are pending, including whether voters with disabilities can receive ballots electronically, whether the Elections Commission must audit voter citizenship, whether voters can "spoil" and recast returned mail ballots, and whether courts can extend voting hours during emergencies [17][18]. As UW-Madison professor Barry Burden told Votebeat, "the length of the term" matters enormously given Wisconsin's role as a presidential battleground [18].

The Candidates: Taylor and Lazar

Chris Taylor served as policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin before winning election to the state Assembly as a Democrat in 2011, where she served eight years [19][20]. Governor Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020, and she won election to the Court of Appeals in 2023 [20]. She has said she models her judicial philosophy after Ruth Bader Ginsburg, citing "equal justice for everyone" and the principle that "the rule of law applies to everybody" [21]. As an appellate judge, she ruled that incomplete witness address information does not automatically invalidate an absentee ballot [18].

Her critics point to her openly partisan background. Lazar has accused Taylor of being unable to separate her legislative career from judicial duties. Republicans have highlighted Taylor's prior calls to repeal Wisconsin's voter ID law [18].

Maria Lazar spent 20 years in private practice before joining the Department of Justice under Republican Attorney General J.B. Van Hollen [20]. She served as lead trial attorney defending Act 10 from legal challenge and also defended Republican-drawn redistricting maps [20]. She was elected to the Waukesha County Circuit Court in 2015 and to the Court of Appeals in 2022 [22]. A Federalist Society member, she has called the Supreme Court's decision overturning Roe v. Wade "very wise" [22]. As an appellate judge, she ruled that disabled voters cannot receive absentee ballots by email [18].

Lazar has positioned herself as "simply uphold[ing] the law" and has been endorsed by former Governor Scott Walker and Wisconsin's six Republican members of Congress [20]. Her campaign has emphasized a record of being tough on crime and supportive of Second Amendment rights [22].

Independent legal observers note that Taylor's background — former legislator, former Planned Parenthood staffer — makes her alignment with the liberal bloc highly predictable. Whether she might diverge from liberal colleagues on, say, criminal procedure or business regulation cases remains an open question, though nothing in her appellate record suggests it.

The Durability Question: Is This a Democratic Wave or an Off-Cycle Artifact?

Democrats have won 18 of the last 23 statewide elections in Wisconsin since 2017 [2]. Liberal candidates have won three consecutive Supreme Court races, each by substantial margins. The temptation to read a durable realignment into these results is considerable.

But there are strong reasons for caution. The 2023 race was galvanized by the post-Dobbs abortion backlash, which drove record turnout among Democratic-leaning voters. The 2025 race was supercharged by $144.5 million in spending, a Trump endorsement, Musk's personal investment, and the existential question of court control [3][4]. Neither condition applies in 2026.

The 60% drop in early voting suggests that without a galvanizing issue or a perceived threat to the court's balance, Democratic voters are substantially less motivated [7]. If Taylor wins by a comfortable margin on lower turnout, it may say more about conservative disengagement — the donor fatigue and strategic confusion described by Republican operatives — than about Democratic enthusiasm.

Kyle Kondik of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics captured the dynamic in his preview of the race, titled "From Blockbusters to Boring?" — noting that the absence of a majority fight had turned the race into something closer to a typical low-salience spring election [9]. The true test of Democratic strength will come in November 2026, when Governor Evers' successor, a U.S. Senate seat, and potentially a constitutional amendment on nonpartisan judicial elections are all on the ballot.

Republican Counter-Moves: Constitutional Amendments and Legislative Strategy

Wisconsin Republicans have not pursued jurisdiction-stripping or court-packing legislation of the kind seen in some other states. Their 2023 flirtation with impeaching Justice Protasiewicz over her redistricting comments collapsed after public backlash and warnings from former conservative justices [23][24].

Instead, Republicans have turned to the constitutional amendment process. The Legislature placed two amendments on the November 2026 ballot: one prohibiting government closure of places of worship during emergencies, and another banning government entities from granting preferential treatment based on race, sex, or ethnicity [25]. Neither directly targets the court, but the amendment strategy reflects a broader effort to entrench policy preferences beyond the reach of a liberal-majority court.

A separate push to convert Wisconsin's nonpartisan judicial elections into partisan ones gained traction in the Legislature but ultimately stalled [10]. In response, Montana organizers are gathering signatures to constitutionally enshrine nonpartisan judicial elections, and Wisconsin may see a similar effort [10]. Governor Evers has also called for a special legislative session to ban partisan gerrymandering — a move that, if successful, would preempt future redistricting litigation [26].

The Bigger Picture: Are Elected Courts Working?

Wisconsin's experience raises fundamental questions about judicial selection. The state has now seen three consecutive spring elections that function as de facto partisan contests, with national donors, party infrastructure, and presidential endorsements driving outcomes in formally nonpartisan races.

Research supports the concern. A study published in the Journal of Public Economics found that nonpartisan judicial selection processes produce higher-quality judges than partisan ones [27]. Separately, scholars have documented that elected judges facing competitive elections tend to be more punitive in criminal sentencing, and that this increased severity falls disproportionately on minority defendants [28]. In the 15 states with directly elected judges, courts overturned death sentences in only 11% of appeals, compared to 26% in states with appointed judges [28].

The counterargument is democratic accountability. Wisconsin voters have repeatedly turned out in large numbers to express clear preferences about their court's direction. The 2023 and 2025 elections drew turnout comparable to midterm elections. Proponents of elected courts argue that this engagement produces a judiciary more responsive to public values — and that the alternative, gubernatorial appointment, simply shifts the same political dynamics behind closed doors.

Kansas will test this tension directly in August 2026, when voters decide whether to abandon their merit-selection system — where governors appoint from commission-vetted lists — in favor of direct election of supreme court justices [10]. The outcome may influence reform debates nationwide.

For Wisconsin, the practical question is narrower: Can a system that produced $144.5 million in spending on a single judicial race in 2025 sustain public confidence in judicial independence? The Brennan Center's post-2025 analysis warned that "unlimited donations" and "weak recusal rules" had created conditions where litigants before the court could be — or could recently have been — the court's largest financial backers [8][29].

Whether the 2026 race's relative quiet represents a return to normalcy or merely a pause before the next escalation will depend on what cases reach the court, what political conditions prevail in 2028, and whether Wisconsin voters ultimately decide that their judiciary's legitimacy requires structural reform.