Crawford wins court seat
By Kevin O’Brien
Area voters stayed reliably conservative in Tuesday’s elections, throwing their support behind former attorney general Brad Schimel in his failed attempt to defeat Dane County judge Susan Crawford for a pivotal seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Crawford won the statewide election with 55 percent of the 2.4 millions votes cast, but in Marathon and Clark counties, Schimel dominated in nearly every precinct.
Despite the endorsement of President Trump, who won Wisconsin just five months ago, Schimel was unable to overcome big support for Crawford in Democratic strongholds such as Madison and Milwaukee. Voters statewide also showed a slight shift to the left, according to Tuesday’s high-pro-file election results.
More attention than usual was paid
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Susan Crawford Elections
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to the state Supreme Court race, in part because of Elon Musk’s investment of $25 million into Schimel’s campaign, which included paying voters to sign a petition against “activist judges,” a term often used to characterize left-leaning judges like Crawford.
Money was poured into both sides of the race, with total donations exceeding $100 million and setting a new record for spending on judicial races in the United States, according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
George Soros, a wealthy donor who often contributes to liberal candidates and causes, donated $2 million to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, which turned the money over to Crawford’s campaign.
National poll-watchers also saw Tuesday’s election as a possible indication of how voters in a swing state like Wisconsin are feeling just a few months into Trump’s second term.
In Marathon County, Schimel won 55 percent of the 53,360 votes cast on Tuesday. That was down over three points from the 58.6 percent of the vote won by Trump in November, when about 78,800 votes were cast. As expected, though, voter turnout was way down from November, when 95 percent of eligible voters showed up to the polls, compared to 61 percent on Tuesday.
In neighboring Clark County, Schimel won 63.5 percent of the county’s 10,452 votes, compared to Trump winning 68.4 percent of the nearly 15,000 votes cast in the presidential election. Still, Tuesday’s turnout was higher than normal for an offyear judicial election.
Crawford’s victory means that liberal justices will maintain a 4-to-3 majority on the state’s high court, which is set to rule on highly contentious issues such as abortion and congressional redistricting within the coming year. Crawford will replace retiring justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who was part of the court’s narrow liberal majority.
In Tuesday’s other statewide race, the Democrat-backed state superintendent of schools, Jill Underly, defeated challenger Brittany Kinser, who was backed by conservatives. Underly won about 53 percent of the vote across the state, with 1.1 million voters casting a ballot for her, compared to just over 1 million for the challenger.
Underly, who was first elected state superintendent in 2021, will serve another four-year term as a result of Tuesday’s election.
Just as it was with the Supreme Court race, local voters overwhelmingly supported the more conservative Kinzer over the Democrat-backed Underly.
Kinzer, a former principal and special education teacher who had worked in Chicago and Milwaukee, was a strong supporter of the state’s private school voucher program.
Underly was supported by the state’s largest teachers union, the Wisconsin Education Association Council. She also has a background as a teacher and principal. Prior to being elected state superintendent, she served as assistant director of the Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction.
The only statewide win for conservatives in Tuesday’s election was the passage of a constitutional amendment that will require voters to present valid photo identification at the polls. The 63 percent support for the referendum will enshrine the state’s existing Voter ID law in the state constitution, making it difficult for a court to overturn.
Support for the constitutional amendment was particularly strong throughout the area, with 72 percent of voters in Marathon County voting in favor of the referendum. In nearly every local town and village, the number of no votes rarely exceeded double-digits. Appellate court Judge Lisa Stark was also on Tuesday’s ballot, running unopposed for another term for District 3 of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
