MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Democrats hoped to increase liberal control of the state Supreme Court in Wisconsin on Tuesday in an election that has focused largely on abortion rights as cases affecting congressional redistricting, union rights and other hot button issues also await in the perennial battleground state.
This year’s Supreme Court election stands in stark contrast to the swing state's previous two, where national spending records were set in battles
over majority control. Spending and national attention is down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake.
Democrats are looking to tighten their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor's office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. Democrats aspire to undo a host of Republican-enacted laws that made Wisconsin a focal point for the nation’s conservative movement in the 2010s.
In Tuesday's Supreme Court race, Democratic-backed Chris Taylor, a former state lawmaker who also worked for Planned Parenthood, faces Republican-supported Maria Lazar. Both Taylor and Lazar are state Appeals Court judges.
Liberals would increase their majority on the court to 5-2 from 4-3 with a Taylor win. That would lock in the liberal majority until at least 2030.
Liberals took control of the state's top court in 2023, ending 15 years under a conservative majority. They held onto their majority with last year's victory in a race that drew involvement from President Donald Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk, who personally handed out $1 million checks to voters in the state.
Liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, noting that when the court was controlled by conservative justices in 2020 it came just one vote shy of siding with Trump in his attempt to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in that year's presidential election.
Since liberals took control, the court has reversed several election-related rulings, including one that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and it is poised to once again be in the spotlight around the 2028 presidential election.
Races for the court are officially nonpartisan, but support for candidates breaks down mostly along partisan lines.
Taylor has focused much of her campaign on abortion rights, with one TV ad saying that “abortion is on the ballot.” In another ad, she criticized Lazar for calling the U.S. Supreme Court's overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022 “very wise.”
Lazar, who was supported by anti-abortion groups in her run for the appeals court, tried to brand Taylor as nothing more than a politician who will push a partisan agenda on the court.
They sparred over each other's partisanship during the campaign's sole debate last week.
Lazar accused Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist.” Taylor said that Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”
Lazar has had a much harder time getting her message out. Taylor had a large fundraising advantage and spent about nine times as much as Lazar on television ads, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.
The liberal-controlled court has already struck down a state law banning abortion and ordered new legislative maps, fueling Democrats’ hopes of capturing a majority this November.
Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and before that she spent 10 years as a Democrat representing the liberal capital city of Madison in the state Assembly.
Lazar, a judge since 2015, previously worked four years under a Republican attorney general in the state Department of Justice. In that role, she defended a law enacted under former Republican Gov. Scott Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers.
A circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to ultimately land before the state Supreme Court.
Lazar also defended laws passed by Republicans and signed by Walker implementing a voter ID requirement and restricting abortion access.
Democrats are optimistic given the past two Supreme Court elections, which saw candidates they backed winning by double digits.
The seat is open due to the retirement of a conservative justice. Another conservative justice is retiring next year, giving liberals a chance to take 6-1 control of the court if they win on Tuesday.
