Jason Stein for the Journal-Sentinel:

In Tuesday’s election, labor-backed candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg lost a race for the Supreme Court in which her side in the contest was badly outspent.

The Greater Wisconsin Committee, the liberal group backing Kloppenburg, spent less than half of what it did on her behalf in her unsuccessful 2011 bid for a court seat, with opponents spending several times more in this race. Greater Wisconsin put up its TV ads only eight days before the election won by Justice Rebecca Bradley, while an independent group started running ads on Bradley’s behalf just over two months before the election.

Is that a sign that the left in Wisconsin is losing its financial resources? For years, Democrats have been predicting that Gov. Scott Walker’s repeal of most collective bargaining for public sector workers would dry up some labor funding for liberal candidates.

The answer is maybe, maybe not, say players on both sides of the state’s polarized political divide.