Progressives expand their majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court with Chris Taylor's win

Chris Taylor won election to the Supreme Court of Wisconsin. He will thus take the seat of conservative Rebecca Bradley, who opted not to seek re-election. His win also marks a growth of the progressive majority in the state's highest court, which will expand from 4-3 to 5-2.

Taylor, a Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge and former Democratic state representative, prevailed with 59% of the vote, against 40% for Maria Lazar.

After fifteen years of conservative majority, progressive justices regained the majority of the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2023. Since then, they expanded the majority and reversed some important rulings handed down by the previous conservative majority. For example, they overturned the ban on mailboxes for depositing vote-by-mail ballots.

Indeed, the last time conservatives won a Supreme Court election in Wisconsin was in 2019, when Brian Hagedorn defeated Lisa Neubauer by a mere 6,000 votes out of more than 1.2 million cast.

Although the election is formally nonpartisan, Democrats celebrated Taylor's win. "Chris Taylor’s decisive victory marks changing tides in Wisconsin. Our next step is taking this same strategy to the state legislature, where we are poised to flip both chambers blue this November," said Heather Williams, chairwoman of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.

Because terms on the Wisconsin Supreme Court last ten years, the progressive majority will continue at least until 2030.

In 2025, the Wisconsin Supreme Court election gained national attention due to the heavy involvement of Elon Musk in the campaign. The SpaceX founder campaigned for conservative Brad Schimel both online and in person. Aiming to boost Republican turnout, Musk even held events in the state in which he donated $1 million among attendees.

However, progressive Susan Crawford ended up winning the race with 55% of the vote, to Schimel's 45%.