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Wisconsin Supreme Court. Photo: Mariiana Tzotcheva.
Wisconsin voters have seen this Election Day movie before.
The April election again – determines whether the Liberal Party or Conservative Party has a majority of four commanders in the state Supreme Court.
According to the latest Marquette University Law School poll, both candidates are once again relatively unknown to voters.
Both — again — billionaires are making large donations to the campaign, or their own groups are running independent ads where they can defend candidates or save others.
Both – again – coinciding with the two political parties in the state. This reminds us how meaningless the requirement for Supreme Court elections to be “non-partisan” is.
Many of the ads once again focus on the same issue: abortion rights, he/she accused of “too extreme” for seven courts, examples of past decisions that threaten public safety, and supporting candidates to make voting easier or difficult.
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And finally, the campaign and efforts by candidates’ third-party supporters will become the most expensive judicial election in the country’s history. Also. The total compiled by wispolitics.com is a document spending that has already exceeded a $56 million record set just two years ago.
The April 1 election for a 10-year term in the state Supreme Court between Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Simel and Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford has the quality of Groundhog Day.
It was only two years ago that then Milwaukee County Circuit Judge Janet Protasiewitz defeated former judge Daniel Kelly on April 4, 2023.
Protasiewicz was then a Democratic candidate. Kelly, Republican. During this cycle, Crawford is supported by the Democrats. Simel, who ran as a Republican and served for a first term as Wisconsin Attorney General, is a candidate for the GOP.
The nature of this campaign’s reruns does not diminish its importance. Major cases pending in the High Court include abortion and collective bargaining rights.
In the only campaign discussion last week, both candidates highlighted their experience.
“I am proud of the work I did as a prosecutor and later on representing Wisconsinians in our courtrooms, protecting healthcare rights, protecting voting rights, and protecting rights in the workplace,” Crawford said.
Simel, a former Waukesha County District Attorney, cited his work with the victim. “I was the guy who called at 3am to go to the crime scene. I was the guy who worked with law enforcement to build the case from crime scene to conviction. I was the shoulder that the victims of the crime screamed.”
The underwriters of discussion, advertising and campaigns reflect the 2023 election, but there are significant differences.
First, Simel was a better candidate than the political novice Kelly when he was appointed to court in 2016 by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker, and lost his maturity bid in 2020.
Simel’s political instincts and contacts, winning a statewide race for the Attorney General in 2014 – and the $10 million that Elon Musk-funded group is already spending to support Schimel, gave him a higher profile than Crawford in the last Marquette University Law School poll.
In that February survey, 38% of registered voters said they didn’t know about Simel or had no opinion, while 58% said the same thing about Crawford. The margin of errors in the survey was 4.6%.
Marquette poller Charles Franklin said the head-to-head poll between the two would have been pointless. “A lot of people need to complement their minds and learn something about these candidates,” Franklin told Wisconsin’s Public Radio.
Another major change between the 2023 and 2025 Supreme Court elections was President Trump’s victory in Wisconsin last November.
Will Shimmel’s campaign be able to maintain statewide momentum? Did the conservatives get from Trump’s victory? Will Shimmel and Musk be able to get a surprising number of young people and a small number of voters who voted for Trump and equated them with Shimmel again to vote on April 1st? The mask ad says Shimmel “supports” Trump’s agenda. Shimmel says it won’t affect his decision.
Or did Crawford’s efforts, backed by billionaire George Soros and donations from state Democrats, once again repeated high turnout among voters in the Metro Milwaukee and Madison area, giving Protesiwicch a 55% to 44% victory for Kelly?
Approximately 36% of Protasiewicz’s votes came from Milwaukee and Dane counties in 2023.
One encouraged number of Schimel’s campaign: nearly one of every 10 votes in Trump’s statewide last year was cast in Waukesha County, his home base.
Both sides have deposited their banks with high voter turnout from their supporters’ bases.
Stephen Walters began covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.
