Control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court is up for grabs for the second time in two years in an election that has already broken spending records for a judicial race.
The April 1 contest pits Brad Schimel, a former Wisconsin attorney general backed by Republicans, against Susan Crawford, a Dane County circuit court judge backed by Democrats. Both are vying for the seat being vacated by a member of the court’s progressive bloc, which currently holds a 4-3 majority.
The race is the first statewide election in a battleground state since Donald Trump won a second term last November and Republicans won control of the House and Senate. The themes that have played out over the course of the campaign could have implications for elections later this cycle. While Wisconsin voters narrowly backed Trump last year, they also reelected Democratic Sen. Tammy Baldwin by just under a point.
Early voting began Tuesday in the technically nonpartisan contest that has drawn investments from both Elon Musk and George Soros.
Both parties are expecting a close race. Already, the campaign has become the most expensive state Supreme Court race ever, breaking the record set just two years ago by another Wisconsin Supreme Court contest, according to the Brennan Center for Justice, which had tracked a total of $67 million spent on the race as of Thursday.
The candidates
Conservatives held a majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court for more than a decade before liberals flipped control in 2023, with Janet Protasiewicz’s victory in a race that brought a new level of attention to a state high court election.
Both Schimel and Crawford currently serve as circuit court judges in their respective counties. Schimel is a judge in Waukesha County, where he previously served as district attorney. He was elected state attorney general as a Republican in 2014, serving one term before narrowly losing reelection in 2018. In his current race, he’s touted support from law enforcement groups and officials.
Crawford has served as Dane County circuit judge since 2018. She previously worked in the administration of Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. She has the support of all four liberal justices on the Wisconsin high court bench in her race against Schimel.
A Marquette Law School poll released earlier this month found that large groups of voters didn’t have opinions on either Schimel or Crawford.
Republicans have accused Crawford of being soft on crime, maintaining a theme on which the party focused in previous election cycles.
Democrats, meanwhile, have sought to tie Schimel to Musk, the billionaire-turned-White House adviser whose super PAC and a nonprofit that he funds have been major spenders in the race. The state Democratic Party has held a series of town halls billed as “The People vs. Musk.” Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who was Kamala Harris’ running mate last year, appeared at one of them this week in Eau Claire.
Turning out voters
Both parties see reason for optimism about turnout for an April election in an off year.
The Supreme Court race is not the only one on the Wisconsin ballot. There’s also a nonpartisan contest for the state’s superintendent of public instruction.
Voters will also be weighing in on a ballot measure pushed by state Republicans that would add a voter identification requirement to the state Constitution. State law already requires voters to present ID, but proponents of the constitutional amendment say it would give the policy greater protection from legal challenges. The ballot measure could also help drive Republicans to the polls.
GOP Rep. Tom Tiffany, who has held rallies in support of Schimel and to encourage people to vote, said the election could be an early test of whether Trump supporters will turn out when the president isn’t on the ballot. Tiffany’s district, a solid-red seat in the state’s mostly rural northwest, is a crucial area for Republicans to drive up turnout, he said.
“I believe that’s part of my responsibility, is to make sure that those people are well aware of the stakes in this race, and I’m encouraging them to get out and vote because they will be helping President Trump and his agenda,” Tiffany said.
To the south of Tiffany’s district, another Republican congressman, Derrick Van Orden of the 3rd District, said the party base was more energized than usual for an April election.
“We learned, as a party here in Wisconsin, that if we turn out the vote and we do absentee ballots and early absentee and early in-person voting, which started on the 18th, that we can win,” Van Orden said. “And so we’re seeing a collective group effort by just about everybody that cares about the importance of the rule of law getting out and working.”
On the Democratic side, Rep. Mark Pocan reported seeing a “very engaged electorate,” with a record number of calls to his office.
“There’s definitely an intensity, especially around Elon Musk,” the Madison-area congressman said. “The real test will be if we see an increased turnout, it is largely due to people unhappy with what is coming out of the Trump administration.”
The Democratic National Committee recently announced what it deemed a “historically early investment” into the state party’s campaign and said Democrats would launch a phone banking effort to call more than 2 million voters, urging them to support Crawford and Jill Underly, the incumbent state superintendent of public instruction who’s also up for reelection.
Congressional redistricting
Wisconsin’s congressional map has become an issue in the Supreme Court race — and one that could potentially come before the justices down the road.
Republicans have accused Crawford of promising to reconsider the state’s congressional map, under which the GOP currently holds six of eight House seats. The Wisconsin Republican Party highlighted a complaint against Crawford last month, citing her attendance at a briefing with donors for which the email invite was headlined “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026,” the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported.
“It’s very clear that the national money that’s coming into the race for Susan Crawford, they want a particular result, and that is they want these federal maps pulled back and they’re hoping to pick up two seats to weaken our majority in the House,” Tiffany said.
Crawford told the Journal Sentinel that she briefly addressed the group on Zoom, exited after a few minutes and “was not there to hear the rest of their agenda.” A spokesman for her campaign told the newspaper that she did not comment about congressional redistricting at the meeting or at any other time.
In a public appearance this month with the Rotary Club of Milwaukee, Crawford said it wasn’t “appropriate for a candidate for the Supreme Court to say that you would welcome any one issue or another that might end up before the Supreme Court.”
Democrats have long criticized the Wisconsin congressional map as heavily favoring Republicans in what is a closely divided state. Of the six Republican-held seats, two are considered competitive by Inside Elections with Nathan L. Gonzales: Van Orden’s 3rd District (rated Tilt Republican) and the 1st District represented by Rep. Bryan Steil (rated Likely Republican).
Last year, the liberal-controlled state Supreme Court rejected a Democratic lawsuit that sought to throw out the congressional map. The court, however, did rule separately that the state’s legislative maps, which gave Republicans the advantage, were unconstitutional. Under new lines, Democrats flipped 14 state legislative seats in last fall’s elections and Republicans lost their supermajority in the state Senate.
Kareem Crayton, vice president of the Brennan Center’s Washington office, said the interest in this year’s Supreme Court race is partly related to what the court “has already done in moving the state more towards a fair and equitable manner of drawing districts, and some people aren’t very happy about that.”
Any new lawsuit challenging the congressional map would have to work its way up to the state Supreme Court, which could take some time, Crayton said. But given the narrow margins in the House, there could be pressure from both within the state and outside to reconsider the map, he added.
“The more these outcomes in Washington are kind of razor-thin, I think there will be calls to do a lot of things to try to erase the one-party control at the federal level,” Crayton said. “Whether or not it succeeds is a state question.”
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