Wisconsin liberals increased their majority on the state’s Supreme Court on Tuesday, allowing them to box out conservatives until 2030 at the earliest.
Chris Taylor, a 58-year-old state appeals judge and former Democratic lawmaker, beat fellow appeals court judge Maria Lazar, a conservative, the Associated Press reported. Taylor had about 60 percent of the vote when 90 percent of the ballots had been counted.
“Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government,” Taylor told supporters.
Taylor will replace Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative who retired last year. With Taylor on the seven-member bench, the balance of power for liberals now shifts from 4-3 to 5-2.
Justices serve 10-year terms. Conservatives would have to hold their two remaining seats in 2027 and 2029, and win back another two in the 2028 and 2030 elections, to regain control of the court. But recent election results indicate that this may be difficult.
Taylor is the third liberal candidate to win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the last three years. In 2025, conservative candidate Brad Schimel lost to Susan Crawford by about 10 percentage points, even though Elon Musk spent $25 million to support the Trump-endorsed candidate. In April 2023, liberals flipped the court’s ideological balance when Janet Protasiewicz beat former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly by about 11 points.
Liberal candidate Jill Kaforsky won the 2020 election as well—also by about 11 points—meaning Democratic-aligned justices have now won four consecutive Supreme Court races in the battleground state that Donald Trump carried in 2024. That streak would have been longer had conservative Brian Hagedorn not eked out his 2019 win by half a percentage point. Also, conservative Annette Ziegler ran unopposed in 2017.
Donations to Lazar’s campaign by Wisconsin’s Republican Party seemed to be an acknowledgment of the difficulty of the race. While Taylor received $775,000 from the state Democratic Party, Lazar received just $64,000.
Taylor and Lazar had just one debate, but in it they staked out opposing views—notably on abortion.
A former Planned Parenthood lobbyist, Taylor condemned the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade, while Lazar applauded it.
The Democratic National Committee heralded Tuesday’s election result as a pro-choice win.
“Tonight, Wisconsin voters made it clear: they don’t want a judiciary that will simply rubber stamp Donald Trump’s toxic agenda,” DNC Chair Ken Martin said in a statement. “Judge Taylor’s victory means Wisconsinites gain another champion on the court who will stand up to corporate greed, defend reproductive rights and our fundamental freedoms, and protect our democracy. While Republicans are more scared than ever about losing big this November, Democrats remain on offense.”
The Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee said it would be applying that strategy to the Wisconsin state legislature, which they are “poised to flip.”
