Wisconsin voters gave Democrats the largest majority on one of the nation’s highest state courts on Tuesday.
The result was a blow. Judge-elect Chris Taylor defeated Judge Maria Lazar for a margin of twenty points. While the Wisconsin Supreme Court race is not technically a race, every recent race has pitted a “liberal” supported by Democrats against a “conservative” supported by the Republican Party. Taylor previously served in the state legislature as a Democrat.
He will replace Judge Rebecca Bradley, a “conservative” in the euphemism Wisconsin uses to describe Republican judges.
Taylor’s victory also means that, barring a miscarriage of justice or some other unlikely event, Democrats will retain good control of the judiciary in one of the nation’s most hotly contested states during the 2028 presidential election.
In 2020, after President Donald Trump lost Wisconsin to former President Joe Biden, Trump asked the Wisconsin Supreme Court. 220,000 votes thrown in the democratic areas of the state. Although Trump did not win this case, three judges, including retired Judge Bradley, concluded that at least some of these voters should have been disenfranchised.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court’s associate rule has national implications
Although Taylor’s victory gives Democrats a majority on Wisconsin’s highest court, the battle for control of this swing state court has long been one of the most contested judicial battles in the country.
Billionaire Elon Musk endorsed a “conservative” candidate in 2025, warning the future of “Western Civilization” is at risk and even handing out million dollar checks at a political rally. With Musk making things clear, Democrats are more strongly favored this time, and judicial control is no longer involved, in this week’s race. it wasn’t fancy and cheap.
Republicans controlled the courts as recently as 2023when Judge Janet Protasiewicz won her seat and gave the Democrats a narrow majority. Protasiewicz’s win also ended a more than decade-long streak at Wisconsin did not hold competitive elections to control its state legislature. After a strong showing in the 2010 election, Republicans gained control of the state of Wisconsin and used that control to govern the state to prevent Democrats from regaining control of the legislature.
In 2018, for example, Democratic candidates for the state legislature received 54 percent of the popular vote in Wisconsin, but Republicans still. won 63 out of 99 parliamentary seats thanks to the GOP gerrymander.
Protasiewicz’s shoe made a campaign to stop this guy. After taking office, he joined three of his Democratic colleagues in beating the gerrymander leader Clarke v. Wisconsin Election Commission (2023). Although Republicans retained control of the state legislature in 2024, they continued lost a total of 14 seats in the state assembly and senate thanks to new unbiased maps.
With the state’s supreme court now in Democratic hands, Wisconsin will hold another free and fair election for control of the state legislature in November, potentially giving Democrats their first chance to take control of the state in more than a decade.
Meanwhile, a Taylor victory would prevent Republicans from lobbying the state’s highest court to overturn the results of the 2028 election in Wisconsin, as Trump urged them to do in 2020.
Judge Annette Ziegler, a Republican, plans to retire in 2027. And Democratic Judge Rebecca Dallet’s seat will be up for grabs in 2028. But even if a Republican wins both of these races, the state supreme court will still have a 4-3 Democratic majority in the 2028 presidential election.
