Wisconsin Supreme Court Election Proceeds Amid State's History of Election Disputes

By Rachel Leingang

*Published: 2026-04-07*

Wisconsin voters headed to the polls on Tuesday to choose a state supreme court justice to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative appointed in 2015. The contest between liberal appeals court Judge Chris Taylor and conservative appeals court Judge Maria Lazar could shift the court's current 4-3 liberal majority—held by liberals over conservatives Annette Ziegler, Bradley, and Brian Hagedorn—to a 5-2 liberal majority. This comes ahead of midterm elections in a swing state that has seen repeated legal challenges to election administration.

Taylor, who previously served as a Democratic state lawmaker, is running against Lazar, a former deputy state attorney general under a Republican administration. A Taylor victory would expand the liberal bloc on the court.

The election carries stakes beyond voting issues, including ongoing litigation over abortion rights—following the court's recent 2023 decision to strike down the state's 1849 abortion ban—and challenges to Act 10, a 2011 law limiting public-sector union bargaining rights that liberals have sought to overturn. The court has also addressed redistricting, with Lazar defending legislative maps in prior cases; those maps were later ruled unconstitutional by the court in 2023.

In a 2022 decision, Teigen v. Wisconsin Elections Commission, Bradley authored the majority opinion concluding that unstaffed drop boxes violated Wisconsin Statute § 6.87, which governs absentee ballot return processes. The ruling interpreted the statute as requiring ballots to be returned directly to the municipal clerk or via certain staffed locations. Liberals on the court later overturned this decision after gaining a majority.

This year's supreme court race has drawn less attention than the two prior contests. The 2023 election flipped the court to a 4-3 liberal majority and was the most expensive judicial race in U.S. history, per the Brennan Center for Justice. The 2025 race surpassed $100 million in spending, with involvement from Elon Musk, who contributed several million dollars personally and through supported groups; liberal candidate Susan Crawford prevailed.

By contrast, this year's race is quieter and less costly. Taylor holds a fundraising advantage, raising significantly more than Lazar. A March poll by Marquette University Law School, conducted less than a month before the election, found more than half of voters undecided, reflecting the contest's lower profile.

Judicial selection methods vary by state. Wisconsin directly elects supreme court justices in nonpartisan races. Other states use appointments by governors or legislatures, sometimes followed by retention elections where voters decide on keeping judges. Nationwide, judicial elections have seen rising costs in recent years.

The outcome offers a snapshot of voter sentiment in a key swing state ahead of November midterms, though turnout and the broader ticket differ from off-year judicial races. Recent Democratic wins in traditionally Republican areas have provided momentum, and midterms often see voters opposing the party holding the presidency.

In the campaign's closing days, Lazar criticized Taylor's partisanship as unsuitable for the bench. Speaking at a county Republican Party office, Lazar said, according to Wisconsin Public Radio, “the court is not for sale.” She added, “We actually want someone on that court who is extremely law nerdy and boring, and doesn’t care about politics at all, and only cares about the law and the constitution.”

Taylor, addressing supporters at a county Democratic headquarters, highlighted the court's role in state-federal relations, per WPR. “We have an opportunity with this election to strengthen a majority on our court that’s going to protect our rights and freedoms, that’s going to protect our democracy and our elections, and that is going to hold and resist the efforts of the federal government to come into our state and to take away and infringe on our independence as a state,” she said.

On voting matters, Taylor has backed measures to expand access, such as supporting drop boxes and challenging election security restrictions. Lazar has advocated for stricter election integrity rules, including defenses of photo ID requirements and opposition to certain absentee voting expansions, aligning with Republican-led legislative efforts.

Polls show Taylor as the favorite, but she cautioned against complacency in an interview with Politico. “The composition of this court can change very quickly because we have so many elections coming up,” she said. “So nobody should feel that this current majority is set in stone. It’s not.”

“Wisconsin has been in the crosshairs of extensive litigation in terms of the way the state runs its elections,” said Victoria Bassetti, a senior adviser to the States United Democracy Center, a voting rights organization, in comments to Bolts, a news website focused on elections. “While this supreme court race may seem like a sleeper contest, from the democracy perspective, it’s anything but low-stakes … These issues never go to sleep in Wisconsin.”

Though supreme court justices run as nonpartisan, the court's ideological balance has influenced rulings on elections, redistricting, labor laws, and reproductive rights, drawing national interest to Wisconsin's judicial races.

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