MILWAUKEE (CN) - Low stakes and an unmotivated state GOP have made Wisconsin's spring election for a seat on the state Supreme Court unrecognizably meager in its final weeks.

Wisconsin voters have gotten used to record-breaking spending from their justices. The 2025 race between Justice Susan Crawford and former U.S. Attorney Brad Schimel became the most expensive judicial race in American history, topping out at over $100 million.

That election was more like an all-out war than a race to the finish line, attracting the national spotlight and becoming a referendum on President Donald Trump's second term.

Musk ratcheted up the temperature even more with negative ad campaigns and petitions to rid the court of "activist judges," to the tune of $20 million.  

He went so far as to pay thousands of petition signers $100 each, prompting Wisconsin Attorney General Josh Kaul to unsuccessfully request an injunction from the state Supreme Court against Musk for bribery in the final days of the election. Another lawsuit brought by a campaign finance watchdog is still making its way through the courts.  

The race began to feel more like Crawford versus Musk to many as the tech billionaire's shadow campaign dominated airwaves.

Things couldn't look more different two weeks away from the April 7 spring election to replace conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley. Wisconsin Court of Appeals Judges Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar are working with a fraction of the money and enthusiasm seen in the last two elections for the high court.

Liberals control the court with a 4-3 majority for the first time in 15 years, so a win by either candidate wouldn't change the status quo but could extend liberal control by a few years.

Lazar, 61, is the conservative-leaning candidate, though she didn't secure the endorsement of Bradley. Hailing from Brookfield, Wisconsin, Lazar has sat on the state appellate court for seven years.

Before then, she bounced for 32 years between Milwaukee, Madison and Waukesha as a private practice business attorney, an assistant attorney general for the Wisconsin Department of Justice and finally a circuit court judge.

Lazar's campaign is laser-focused on judicial philosophy and restraint. Rather than harp on hypothetical positions she may take on a given case, she has positioned herself as the solution to a perceived epidemic of "activist judging" plaguing the bench.

Taylor, 58, has sat on the state appellate court since 2023. Before that, she served on the Dane County Circuit Court for three years following a decade as a lawmaker in the Wisconsin Assembly.

She says her philosophy is "people-centered" and focused on giving everyone a fair shot. A former policy director for Planned Parenthood, Taylor has oriented her campaign around advocacy and individual rights.

Opposite approaches

Lazar claims Taylor's past work with Planned Parenthood continues to color her judgment today. She accuses Taylor of supporting abortion "at any time during pregnancy," pointing to a 2017 Assembly bill the liberal supported that called for the right to abortion at any time if the pregnant person's life is in peril.

Lazar, who leans conservative, has said that she will not allow her opinion on abortion to influence her role as a justice, and that it's up to the Legislature to decide the state's abortion policy - not the Supreme Court.

Henrik Schatzinger, a political science professor at Ripon College, said Lazar's more measured approach may not be as attractive to voters as Taylor's issues-based campaign.

"It's much more nuanced and difficult to understand, so it's hard to mobilize people with a more restrained, cautious approach, which is her style and nature," Schatzinger said. "The abortion issue perhaps is the most emotionally charged issue being discussed and it helps Democrats."

Marquette University professor Chad Oldfather agreed in a separate interview and added the polarizing political climate disfavors that kind of candidate even if voters might prefer it in the abstract.  

He says his ideal candidate is one who isn't "readily identifiable with a side - they don't have a team, they don't attempt to cultivate a good reputation among only a subset of the population but rather want to have a good reputation more broadly."

What may be a strength in the eyes of some voters has become a foil to potential donors. Taylor is far outpacing Lazar in fundraising and spending, according to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission's reporting system.

Taylor last reported $4.2 million in total contributions - which includes donations from individuals, political action committees and political parties - while Lazar remains stalled under $700,000.

Nonpartisan campaign finance watchdog Wisconsin Democracy Campaign reports both candidates get most of their money from "big money donations" of $100 or more.

Licking their wounds

Communications director Molly Carmichael was utterly mystified while tallying up the spending in the upcoming Wisconsin Supreme Court race for the watchdog: "I calculated it a bunch of times, asking myself, 'Is this right?' I even had someone else double check it. It's unbelievable."

She found that independent spending - or money spent by third parties to promote a candidate - had barely broken $600,000. To put that in perspective, independent spending in the 2025 race between Crawford and Schimel was at nearly $25 million with a month to go until election day.

Candidates and political action committees will file updated fundraising and spending reports to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission at the end of the month.

The stakes in this race are far lower without the opportunity to flip the court's ideological majority, but Schatzinger says the real depressant is likely a lack of competitiveness after Democrats came out on top in the 2025 and 2023 Supreme Court races in what were "pretty much slam dunks."

"There's some donor fatigue, some voter fatigue and, of course, [they're] still trying to heal [their] wounds from this battle of last year, which didn't quite work out so well," Schatzinger said.   

The Republican Party of Wisconsin has not directly contributed to Lazar's campaign, according to the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. In contrast, the Democratic Party of Wisconsin reported contributing $260,000 so far to Taylor.

The party has not reported making any contributions to any candidates so far in 2026 after giving Schimel nearly $10 million directly in the 2025 race, which he lost by 10 points.  

Several county branches have contributed, with the largest gift of $6,000 coming from the Republican Party of Calumet County.

"Our support reflects the confidence our members have in Judge Lazar's qualifications, experience and judicial philosophy," said party chair Barbara Bittner. "Even when the overall ideological balance does not change, individual justices still play a critical role."

The Republican Party of Wisconsin did not respond to several attempts by Courthouse News to reach it for comment on the spending totals of this race, or its support of Lazar.

Saving up for midterms

State Republicans are facing an uphill battle in November, when every seat in the Wisconsin Assembly and half of the Senate will be up for grabs. Democrats need only pick up 10 and four, respectively, to flip the majority for the first time since 2008.

The party's top brass is falling to retirement one after another, including Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, state Senators Steven Nass and Van Wanggaard, and more.

Communications director Philip Shulman says the Democratic Party of Wisconsin is looking beyond April 7 at the possibility of a trifecta, or liberal control of all three branches of state government.  

"Every day Wisconsinites have years and years of receipts showing not just how Republicans in the Legislature, but also conservative justices have tried to stack the deck against them - there's no reason that a big donor would want to donate to a dying cause," Shulman said. "Our voters are really motivated."  

Schatzinger guessed the state Republican party is likely to channel its energy at maintaining the conservative majority in the Legislature, where it can at least exert some control over the direction of policy in the state.

Trump endorsed U.S. Representative Tom Tiffany for governor, while state Democrats continue to vie for the top spot in the run-up to November.

Source: Courthouse News Service