Control of the Wisconsin state Supreme Court is on the ballot this spring, and the contest could decide the fate of abortion rights, redistricting and more in the critical swing state.
Should a more liberal-leaning jurist win the job in the April election, it would flip the balance of the state’s highest court for at least two years.
There are significant policy outcomes hanging on the result. The court chose the state’s political maps for the decade after the Democratic governor and Republican Legislature deadlocked, and it’s likely to hear a case challenging Wisconsin’s 19th-century law banning almost all abortions in the near future. Wisconsin’s Supreme Court also decided major cases on election laws and voting rights before and after the 2020 presidential election.
“The 2023 Wisconsin state Supreme Court race is the most important election that nobody’s ever heard of,” said Ben Wikler, the chair of the state Democratic Party. “It has implications that will affect national politics for years to come, really at every level of government.”
Party organizations and ideological outside groups — both sides of abortion debate, for example, as well as labor groups — are planning to spend millions on advertising and activating extensive field networks. It will be the latest multimillion-dollar judicial race in recent years, which reflects both the outsize importance of the outcome and the increasing focus on contests further down the ticket — and away from Washington.