Wisconsin Supreme Court to tackle abortion, unions and redistricting after a liberal's win
Susan Crawford’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election victory over a conservative candidate backed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk cements a liberal majority on the state’s top court for at least three more years
MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Susan Crawford’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election victory over a conservative candidate backed by President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk cemented a liberal majority on the state’s top court for at least three more years and dealt a devastating blow to Republicans who fear it paves the way for rulings that will overturn or block the GOP's agenda in the swing state.
Trump, Musk and other Republican leaders fear Crawford's win means the court controlled 4-3 by liberals will redraw Wisconsin's congressional lines in a way that could help Democrats to win at least two seats and regain the majority.
Crawford's backers, including Democratic U.S. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, said electing Crawford was important so she and other liberal justices can order Wisconsin's congressional boundary lines to be redrawn.
Last year, the court declined to take up a Democratic-backed challenge to the state's congressional lines. That decision drew criticism from one of Wisconsin's two House Democrats, Rep. Mark Pocan, who said Wednesday that he hopes a new lawsuit will be filed soon.
“If you have two seats out of eight in a purple, 50-50 state, clearly there’s gerrymandering going on," Pocan said.
Waiting in the wings are cases that could solidify the right to abortion in Wisconsin and undo former Republican Gov. Scott Walker's signature law that stripped collective bargaining rights from teachers and most other public workers.
Before the election, Walker said he worried the court would target the state's “right-to-work” law that he signed and look for ways to scale back the program that allows students to attend private schools with a taxpayer-funded voucher.
Crawford pushed back against those allegations in an interview Wednesday.
“Any case that comes before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, I’m going to decide based on the law and not some partisan agenda,” she told The Associated Press. “I’m not going to be making any decisions based on my policy views or any kind of political agenda. I’m going to be basing them on what the constitution requires and the law requires.”
Jeff Mandell, general counsel of the liberal Madison law firm Law Forward, said he didn't think the strategy would be to “refight every past battle.”
“Sometimes, when I hear that rhetoric it seems to me there’s a fear or belief that we have this whole file of prewritten lawsuits on every issue they’ve won on the last set number of years,” he said. “At least for me, that’s not true.”
Crawford won comfortably in a race that saw spending of around $100 million, including more than $21 million from Musk and groups he controls. Democratic billionaires got behind Crawford, with George Soros contributing $2 million and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker throwing in $1.5 million.
Those supporting Schimel spent $8 million more than Crawford's backers, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice.
All of the attention resulted in record-high turnout of over 50% of the voting age population, breaking the previous record for a Wisconsin Supreme Court election by about 10 points set in 2023.
Crawford defeated Schimel by 10 points, based on unofficial results, just below the 11-point victory by the liberal candidate in the 2023 race. That election flipped control of the court from conservatives who had held it for 15 years.
Over the past two years, the court has served as a check on Wisconsin's Republican-controlled Legislature.
The court ordered new legislative maps and Democrats picked up seats in the November election and hope to take control of at least one chamber of the Legislature in 2026.
The court also overturned a decision by the former conservative court that banned absentee ballot drop boxes.
Schimel's loss had Republicans worried about what that means for 2026, when Democratic Gov. Tony Evers' is up for reelection to a third term.
And with a liberal court there to potentially block a Republican governor's agenda, Walker asked: "Who would ever want to run for governor?”
Democrats say Crawford's win shows Republicans need to moderate.
“The people of Wisconsin are not really going in for some kind of large scale agenda that Trump and Musk are selling,” said Patrick Guarasci, a top adviser to the Crawford campaign who has also been involved in gubernatorial races. “The Republicans need to come back to the center.”
