Liberals will try to expand their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in a Tuesday election

By Arlette Saenz, CNN

(CNN) — One year after Elon Musk donned a cheesehead hat and unsuccessfully poured millions of his personal fortune into a judicial contest in the state, Democrats are hoping to deliver another setback to conservatives in Wisconsin’s Supreme Court election on Tuesday.

Conservative judge Maria Lazar and liberal judge Chris Taylor are facing off to replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative. The race won’t flip control of the court after liberals last year secured a 4-3 majority, but it will determine whether liberals can extend their hold on the state’s highest court, potentially through the end of the decade.

The contest has flown under the radar compared to the spring 2025 election that became the most expensive judicial race in US history and offered Democrats a jolt of momentum early in President Donald Trump’s second term.

A liberal win Tuesday could have far-reaching implications in a battleground state where competitive midterm elections are underway and a presidential race looms in 2028. Though the election is technically nonpartisan, the contest is also another gauge of Democratic enthusiasm and a test of Republicans’ ability to turn out voters when Trump is not on the ballot.

“It is critical to make sure that we have a pro-democracy majority on our bench, not just through the midterm, but through the next presidential election, and all the way through 2030,” said Devin Remiker, the chair of Wisconsin’s Democratic Party.

Top Democrats, including several with eyes on potential 2028 runs, have looked for ways to boost Taylor’s campaign. Former US Ambassador to Japan Rahm Emanuel hit the battleground state last month while former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg, Arizona Sen. Mark Kelly and Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy have signed fundraising e-mails for Taylor, a spokesperson for the liberal judge said.

Eric Holder, who leads the National Democratic Redistricting Committee, campaigned in the state in the final stretch while former President Barack Obama posted an online call to turn out for Taylor.

A Marquette Law School poll conducted in mid-March found more than half of registered voters (53%) were undecided about the race, with 23% supporting Taylor while 17% favored Lazar.

Taylor has held a significant financial edge over Lazar throughout the campaign. The liberal judge, who entered the race in May, raised more than $5.6 million, while Lazar brought in nearly $900,000 since she entered the race in the fall, according to campaigns filing reports.

Spending in this race has topped $6 million, according to data from AdImpact, far below the more than $80 million spent in digital and TV spots in last year’s nationalized race which drew in millions from Musk and heavy spending from outside groups. Most of the spending in this year’s contest has come from Taylor and her allies.

Mark Graul, a GOP strategist who has managed state judicial races in the past, said that money disparity is a warning sign for conservatives.

“If Judge Taylor is successful, all you have to do is point to the tremendous resource advantage her campaign has had in this race,” said Graul.

Nathan Conrad, a spokesperson for Lazar’s campaign, acknowledged the financial challenge facing her run, adding, “We are focusing laser pointed on where our dollars are going and making sure we’re hitting the target voters that we know need to hear Maria’s message as often as possible before Election Day.”

Disputes over abortion rights and voter ID

Taylor, a state appeals court judge from Dane County, spent nine years as a Democratic legislator in the state assembly and was an attorney and policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Lazar, a state appeals court judge from Waukesha County, was formerly an assistant state attorney general who defended former GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s Act 10, which effectively ended collective bargaining rights for most public-sector workers, and Republican redistricting efforts in the state in 2011.

In their lone debate on Thursday night, Lazar and Taylor sparred over abortion rights months after the liberal majority on the court struck down the state’s 176-year-old abortion ban that conservatives argued reactivated after the Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade.

Lazar said the Supreme Court moved legal authority over abortion to the states and said she would honor Wisconsin’s ban on abortions after 20 weeks, which she labeled a “compromise.”

“I think that it falls within the parameters of where people in the state believe it should be,” said Lazar. “And if they don’t, the answer is to go to the legislature and the governor, not the courts.”

Taylor, who has run campaign ads featuring Lazar saying the Dobbs decision was “very wise,” said her opponent’s position was “tragic.”

“It’s not been very wise for victims of rape and incest who now live in states where abortion has been outlawed. It’s not very wise for women who have lost their lives in states because they couldn’t get help when a pregnancy went wrong,” Taylor said. “My opponent is going to take us backwards. I will take us forwards.”

Lazar grew visibly agitated, saying “That’s absolutely ridiculous.”

“I have never wanted women injured, ever, ever, ever. I have always said that the health and life of the mother is the most important thing,” said Lazar.

The two candidates also weighed in on election integrity matters just days after President Donald Trump signed an executive order to crack down on mail-in voting and as he pushes congressional Republicans to pass nationwide restrictions.

Taylor said she is “very concerned that we might have efforts to suppress the vote” and argued “this is why we need a strong Supreme Court that’s going to hold the federal government accountable.”

Lazar said she would uphold the state’s voter ID law, which Wisconsin voters approved last year, but added she does not agree with all the efforts underway on the federal level, nothing that early and mail-in voting is “responsible” and “necessary.”

“I think it’s important that we tell people in the state of Wisconsin that our elections are safe, they’re secure and that their votes count,” she added.

Nearly six years after Trump’s effort to overturn the 2020 presidential results, Lazar also sought to put some distance between herself and people who refuse to acknowledge Trump’s loss that year, saying, “Joe Biden did win.”

A liberal winning streak prompts calls for conservative recalibration

Though the state has swung between political parties on the presidential level, a liberal winning streak in the state Supreme Court races began in 2020. Liberals reclaimed the majority in 2023 and extended their control of their court in last year’s contest when liberal Justice Susan Crawford beat conservative Judge Brad Schimel by 10 points.

If Taylor wins on Tuesday, liberals would have a 5-2 majority and may have the ability to cement their control even more next year. Last month, conservative Justice Annette Ziegler announced her retirement, putting another court seat in play in 2027.

In her announcement last summer that she was retiring from the state Supreme Court, Bradley warned of an “alarming shift” towards “bitter partisanship” on the court.

“The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it,” Bradley wrote.

Graul, who ran Ziegler’s races for the Supreme Court, said successful conservative candidates in the past have fit a similar profile – judges with prior experience as prosecutors and strong backing from law enforcement – which he believes Lazar embodies.

But he argued conservatives in judicial contests also will need to focus on winning back suburban voters, particularly in the southeast portion of the state.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to communicate to those voters in a way that appeals to their sense of fairness,” he said.

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