Wisconsin voters will return to the polls this spring for the first major election in a battleground state since the 2024 presidential race.
The April 1 contest for a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court — which will determine the bench’s ideological balance for the second time in two years — has already drawn millions of dollars from big names on both sides of the political aisle, with the future of a bevy of hot-button issues related to abortion rights, unions and congressional maps at stake.
“It’s probably going to be just as competitive as the last couple of presidential and gubernatorial elections and Senate elections here,” said former Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. The race, which is technically nonpartisan, promises to “reach a level that much more like what you see in partisan elections,” he added.
The seat is open after liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced last year she would not run for a fourth 10-year term. The general election campaign quickly got underway after both sides quickly lined up behind a candidate and the primary was canceled.
The liberal candidate in the race is Susan Crawford, a state judge in Madison who worked earlier in her career in the administration of former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle.
She’ll face off against conservative candidate Brad Schimel, a state judge in Waukesha County who previously served as the state’s Republican attorney general.
It’s a similar dynamic to 2023, when the retirement of conservative Justice Patience Roggensack led to the most expensive state supreme court race in U.S. history. Janet Protasiewicz defeated Daniel Kelly, giving liberals their first majority on the bench in 15 years.
A cadre of major donors have already flooded this year’s battle for the Wisconsin Supreme Court with cash.
Democratic megadonor George Soros gave $1 million to the Wisconsin Democratic Party in January, while LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman contributed $250,000. On the Republican side, megadonor Elizabeth Uihlein gave $650,000 and Joe Ricketts, the founder of TD Ameritrade, chipped in $500,000 to the Wisconsin GOP.
Crawford’s campaign has received $7.3 million in contributions since she announced her candidacy in June 2024, including $4.5 million since the start of the year, according to Wisconsin campaign finance data.
Schimel’s campaign reported receiving donations of about $5 million since he announced his bid back in late 2023. The campaign raised $2.7 million of that this year. Both campaigns have received substantial cash transfers from the state political parties.
While Trump hasn’t weighed in on the race, his billionaire adviser Elon Musk has. Last month, Musk wrote on X that it’s “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!”
Republicans have for years levied unfounded claims of voting fraud in Wisconsin, alleging that drop boxes allow people to vote illegally. Musk’s post reposted a missive about those allegations. The issue has appeared before the state Supreme Court multiple times in recent years, with the liberal-controlled bench overturning an earlier ruling that had outlawed most ballot drop boxes.
Abortion rights, crime take center stage
Meanwhile, the messages that the campaigns will emphasize have already come into clear focus.
For Crawford and Wisconsin Democrats, it’s most prominently reproductive rights.
“It’s definitely a big piece of this,” said Wisconsin Democratic Party spokesperson Joe Oslund. “As attorney general, [Schimel] went to the courts to enforce restrictions on abortion that are still with us.”
The issue was also prominent in the 2023 race, with Protasiewicz frequently touting her support for abortion rights and signaling support for overturning the state’s 1849 abortion ban.
The court ended up hearing a challenge to that ban in November and is widely expected to overturn the law. While abortion providers in the state resumed the procedure in 2023 after a judge ruled that the 175-year-old law didn’t apply to consensual medical abortions, the state Supreme Court is reviewing whether to entirely invalidate the law. In a separate case, Planned Parenthood has asked the high court to establish whether the state constitution establishes a right to an abortion.
“I’m proud of my record fighting for our fundamental rights and freedoms. It’s very concerning when politicians like Schimel undermine the deeply personal decisions that men and women make every day about how to live their lives and what’s best for them and their families,” Crawford said in a statement.
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Crawford, referring to a number of public statements Schimel has made in support of the law, also accused Schimel of having “pre-judged cases pending before the court, saying he doesn’t believe there’s a right to abortion in the state and that Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion ban should be kept on the books and enforced.”
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As recently as July, Schimel called the law “valid” and said during meet-and-greet events in central Wisconsin that “there is not a constitutional right to abortion in our state constitution,” according to audio recordings of the events the Crawford campaign shared with NBC News.
“Wisconsinites want a justice who looks at cases fairly and impartially — Brad Schimel disqualified himself from doing that with these statements,” Crawford said.
Responding to questions on the topic, Schimel said in an email that “I cherish all life” and “I can’t imagine making the deep and personal decision that a woman facing an unplanned pregnancy has to make.”
“But a judge’s job is to apply the law, not make the law. The people of Wisconsin, through referendum or their elected representatives, should decide the question of abortion. As the next Supreme Court Justice, I will respect the will of the people,” Schimel said.
Schimel has run an ad that prominently feature his two adopted daughters. In that ad, Schimel says, “I’m personally grateful for the choice their birth mothers made.”
Asked specifically about the audio recordings, Schimel campaign spokesperson Jacob Fischer said in an email that “Brad has made his stance on this issue clear.”
Schimel and Republicans, meanwhile, have accused Crawford of not being tough on criminals as a judge and have been digging in specifically on a handful of sexual assault cases she oversaw or was involved with.
Crawford has also attacked Schimel in ads that focus on how the state’s Department of Justice allegedly mishandled the maintenance of thousands of rape kits under his watch as attorney general. Schimel has said there were problems with the backlogged tests, that they predated his tenure and that he helped fix existing problems in the unit that handles the kits.
The state’s high court will also end up ruling on a case challenging landmark legislation during the Walker administration that eliminated collective bargaining for most public workers, known as Act 10.
It could also end up deciding cases challenging the state’s congressional maps, which currently favor Republicans.
After Protasiewicz joined the court in 2023, it overturned the state’s heavily gerrymandered legislative maps. The court declined last year to hear a suit that sought to redraw the state’s congressional maps, but some Republicans have expressed fear that similar suits could be accepted in the future, pointing to an email from a Democratic-aligned group that suggested a Crawford victory might “put two more House seats in play.”
Republicans, for their part, have expressed bullishness on Schimel’s candidacy. Unlike in 2023, when political fallout from the overturning of Roe v. Wade was front and center, abortion rights may not be as animating of an issue this time around.
While Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin narrowly won re-election, Republicans are also still riding high on Trump’s victory in the state last fall.
Perhaps even more crucial is the fact that Republicans believe they have a stronger candidate this time around. Kelly lost to Protasiewicz by 11 points in 2023.
“I like where we’re at a whole lot better than I liked where we were with Dan Kelly,” said Wisconsin Republican Party Chairman Brian Schimming.
