The Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Is This Year's Political Money Pit

Yahoo

21-03-2025

Flashback: The year is 2023. A Wisconsin state Supreme Court election has captured the attention of political observers—and large-pocketed donors—across the country. The ideological majority of the court is at stake, and the election results could determine the outcome of major state cases on issues like abortion access and redistricting. It is the most expensive state supreme court race in American history.
Now flash-forward: The year is 2025. A Wisconsin state Supreme Court election has captured the attention of political observers—and large-pocketed donors—across the country. The ideological majority of the court is at stake, and the election results could determine the outcome of major cases on issues like abortion access and redistricting. It is on track to be the most expensive state supreme court race in American history. History often repeats itself, but not usually this quickly.
In less than two weeks, Wisconsin voters will head to the polls for the second nonpartisan-in-name-only, high-profile state Supreme Court race in as many years. Two years ago, Janet Protasiewicz triumphed, cementing a 4–3 liberal majority on the state's highest court. But with the court's ideological persuasion once again in the balance, the April 1 contest between liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford and conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel is already blowing past the record-shattering $51 million price tag of the 2023 Supreme Court election.
'There was some question about whether the 2023 race was a bit of a perfect storm,' said Douglas Keith, senior counsel for the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice. The election came shortly after the U.S. Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, it was viewed as a bellwether for voters' preferences after the federal midterm elections, and the majority of the court was in play for the first time in years.
'There were a number of reasons that that race could have been unique,' Keith continued. 'But I think what we've seen over the last few years suggests that, no, in fact, it was just the beginning of this new era of judicial politics.'
Nationally, state supreme court races have garnered increased attention in recent years, a trend that intensified after the U.S. Supreme Court decision overturning Roe. The back half of this decade will cement whether Wisconsin state Supreme Court races are doomed to be highly nationalized, politicized, and costly: There is an election to the court every year through 2030. State politics will likely be a factor; Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, noted that state governance is currently divided between a Republican legislature and a Democratic governor, meaning that the state high court frequently steps in to settle some significant disputes.
Moreover, as state high courts often have a say in drawing congressional and legislative district lines, these elections can determine not only the ideological balance of the bench but which party controls the majority in the state and federal legislatures. So these races also see investment from the party arms focused on state legislatures. The Republican State Leadership Committee's Judicial Fairness Initiative, which has focused on electing conservative state judges for more than a decade, has invested heavily in advertising opposing Crawford.
'National Democrats are strategically targeting the Wisconsin Supreme Court race to take control of the redistricting process at both the state and federal levels,' Mason Di Palma, the communications director for the Republican State Leadership Committee, said in a statement. 'This blatant attempt to undermine fair representation is unacceptable and must be confronted. The only way to stop the left's advance is by electing Brad Schimel.'
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee proffers the mirror image of that Republican argument: Legislative maps were previously gerrymandered in Republicans' favor, they say, and a different ideological majority corrects that course. After a round of state legislative redistricting ordered by Wisconsin's Supreme Court last year, Democrats gained more of a foothold in the longtime Republican-majority legislature.
'When you have fairer maps and the balance of power tipped in that court, Democrats were able to compete on a level playing field, and flipped four Senate seats and 10 assembly seats [in Wisconsin] last election—putting both chambers within striking distance of Democrats controlling those chambers. So it has huge implications on power in general,' said Jeremy Jansen, the political director of the DLCC.
The race between Schimel and Crawford has also attracted the attention of major donors beyond the usual suspects. Conservative megadonor Richard Uihlein, liberal megadonor George Soros, and Illinois Governor JB Pritzker have invested in the contest, but they are overwhelmingly outspent by billionaire and Trump adviser Elon Musk. Musk's America PAC has spent more than $6 million in get-out-the-vote efforts, and another PAC linked to the billionaire has spent another $6 million on advertisements.
Given Musk's connection to the Trump administration—and relative unpopularity among Americans—organizations supporting Crawford have been quick to tie Schimel to Musk, whose electric car company, Tesla, has litigation pending in Wisconsin. (Crawford herself referred to her opponent as 'Elon Schimel' in a debate earlier this month.)
'Because he's become a lightning rod in Washington and decided to get involved in this race, it has turned this race into a referendum on the Trump administration, in a way,' said Burden.
The Democratic National Committee has also recently announced a major investment in the race focused on ground mobilization, indicating a hunger among national Democrats to have a win in a statewide race after Republicans' resounding victories on the federal level.
Wisconsin is not the only state with a major high-court election this year: In November, Pennsylvania will hold state Supreme Court elections that will likely attract similar attention and money, as the ideological balance of the majority is at stake. These elections are slightly different from the Wisconsin race, as they are retention elections, meaning that voters will decide whether three judges on the liberal-majority court should stay in place. If Pennsylvanians vote in favor of retention, the judges will stay on for another 10-year term; if the majority vote that the judges will be removed, the Democratic governor can appoint a temporary replacement who must be approved by the Republican-majority state Senate.
But even though supreme court races in swing states like Wisconsin and Pennsylvania may be particularly attractive to donors, there is an increased sense that these elections can be critical even in more solidly red or blue states. Recent state Supreme Court races in Montana, Kentucky, Arkansas, and Illinois attracted investment from big-dollar donors and outside spending groups. Ideological balance can be a key indicator of whether a race will attract attention, said Keith. The Montana Supreme Court, for example, has occasionally ruled in opposition to the desires of the Republican governor and state legislature on issues such as maintaining abortion access; however, the recently elected state chief justice was endorsed by anti-abortion advocates.
'More and more political actors are recognizing that if they care about state policy or state election law of any kind, then they may increasingly care about who sits on state high courts,' said Keith.
Donors are also getting involved in lower court races, a strategy notably employed by the conservative Koch brothers. Last year, Musk invested heavily in support for Republican appeals court candidates in Texas, contributing to the turnover of nearly two dozen seats previously held by Democratic judges. Burden noted that the relaxing of campaign finance laws in the past decade and a half has permitted major donors to expand their reach into downballot races, allowing them to influence state and local politics for a relatively small investment. To Musk, the wealthiest man in the world, dropping roughly $12 million into a state supreme court race is a low-risk, high-reward endeavor.
'It's kind of cheap, actually, for a group to try to influence a single supreme court seat rather than try to change the course of a governor's election, or a bunch of state legislative races,' said Burden.
But the increasingly high-profile and expensive nature of state supreme court races could have long-term institutional consequences. In Wisconsin, Burden said, sitting judges on the state Supreme Court are stumping on the campaign trail for their respective preferred candidate; regardless of who wins the race, they will take their seat knowing that half of their new colleagues actively opposed their election.
On a national level, this pattern could result in an increased lack of faith by Americans in judges' capacity to serve with relative objectivity, which could come amid already declining trust in federal institutions such as the U.S. Supreme Court, Congress, and the presidency.
'The public needs to trust that judges are capable of saying, at least in some cases, 'My personal preferences in politics make me want the case to come out this way, but I think the law requires something else, and I'm going to do something else,'' said Keith. 'The way these elections are shaking out, the fact that they look increasingly just like a competitive U.S. Senate race and not judicial elections, makes it harder and harder for the public to trust that judges are doing that.'