Democrats’ Worst Nightmare Fails To Come True In Wisconsin Supreme Court Race

Liberal Dane County Judge Susan Crawford defeated Conservative Waukesha County Judge Brad Schimel on Tuesday, notching a coveted seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court.

The Associated Press called the race at 10:16 p.m. on Tuesday, with Crawford at 55.8% of the vote and Schimel at 44.3%. The race for the key battleground state’s Supreme Court seat drew national attention, with many viewing the election results as a bellwether for voters’ attitudes toward President Donald Trump after his first few months in office.

Incumbent Justice Ann Walsh Bradley announced in April 2024 that she would not seek reelection after her term expires in July. Bradley was first elected to Wisconsin’s Supreme Court in 1995.

The state saw large early voting turnout ahead of Tuesday’s election, surpassing 600,000 votes. Roughly 1.8 million people voted in Wisconsin’s 2023 Supreme Court election.

Although Wisconsin’s state supreme court elections are officially nonpartisan, the court flipped to a liberal majority for the first time in over a decade in 2023 with the election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz.

Wisconsin’s high-stakes 2025 judicial election was the most expensive in U.S. history. As of Monday, the judicial campaigns and outside entities had spent more than $90 million on the race, according to a tally from the Brennan Center for Justice.

“This is playing out like a presidential-style election,” Matt Smith, political director at Milwaukee’s WISN-TV, told ABC News Live’s Diane Macedo in March. “You turn on your TV, any local broadcast station here across the state of Wisconsin, you are inundated with political-type ads for what is technically a nonpartisan judicial race, but this is a full-on political race. This is becoming a true litmus test for the first 100 days of the Trump administration.”

On Sunday, the Wisconsin Supreme Court declined a last-minute attempt from Democratic Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul to stop Elon Musk from handing out $1 million payments to individual voters ahead of Tuesday’s election. Trump endorsed Schimel on March 21, writing in a social media post that any voters who “believe in Common Sense” should get out and vote early for the Republican candidate.

“Brad Schimel’s Opponent, Susan Crawford, is a DISASTER!” Trump wrote Sunday in a post on Truth Social. “She is so Far Left that even her own Party, the Radical Democrats, don’t want ANYTHING to do with her. Wisconsin Values are perfectly represented by Brad Schimel. He is Conservative, Strong and, above all, SANE. His Opponent is a Liberal Lunatic who will throw our Country, and the State of Wisconsin, into TOTAL CHAOS. Vote for Brad Schimel!”

Trump swept all seven battleground states in the November 2024 presidential election, winning 49.7% of Wisconsin’s vote, compared to former Vice President Kamala Harris’ 48.9%.