Liberal judge cruises to victory in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Chris Taylor, a liberal Wisconsin judge, won a seat on the state Supreme Court on Tuesday in the latest strong election for liberals since President Donald Trump’s return to office.

Taylor, a former Democratic state representative and current state appellate judge, defeated conservative appeals court judge Maria Lazar in the race for the ten-year term. Taylor's win expands liberals’ majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to a 5-2 split.

The result comes amid a string of special election victories for Democrats that suggests a difficult political environment for the GOP heading into November’s midterms.

Conservatives haven’t notched a Wisconsin Supreme Court victory since a narrow 6,000-vote win in 2019. In the years since, liberal judges Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz, Susan Crawford — and now Taylor — have romped to easy wins in a Wisconsin spring electorate trending firmly to the left.

Assuming every justice finishes out their terms, the win locks in a liberal court majority until at least 2030.

Taylor’s win doesn’t come as a surprise. In the days before the Tuesday election, Wisconsin Republicans conceded Lazar stood little chance of victory, with GOP donors refraining from pulling out their checkbooks and the majority not at stake in this election.

The election attracted far less attention than last year’s race, where Crawford beat her conservative opponent by over 10 points. That race saw Elon Musk — the world’s richest man and a Republican megadonor — pour millions into an effort to defeat Crawford, arguing the fate of “Western civilization” was at stake in the race.

The court’s liberals have made use of their majority in recent years. In 2023, the court ordered new legislative maps in Wisconsin, effectively ending a GOP gerrymander that had lasted for over a decade. And last July, the panel overturned Wisconsin’s 176-year-old abortion ban by a 4-3 majority.

Also last year, the court ruled that Democratic Gov. Tony Evers could use his veto pen to lock in a 400-year increase in funding for schools.

Neither party expects the fall governor’s race to follow the same exact path as this spring Supreme Court campaign, with November elections in the battleground state routinely decided by slim margins.

Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley, Lt. Gov. Sara Rodriguez and former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes are the top Democrats running for the right to face Trump-endorsed Rep. Tom Tiffany for governor in November.