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For those who keep a close eye on elections, the 2022 midterms were clearly monumental. Chances are, next year’s election cycle is likely to be pretty interesting, too.
But the stakes in this year’s “off-year” elections are plenty high. Three states will hold 2023 gubernatorial races, for example, two states will hold legislative elections, and voters in some of the nation’s largest cities will elect mayors.
Wisconsin’s state Supreme Court race, however, has generally been described as the year’s most important contest, and as the dust settles on the race, it’s worth appreciating why. NBC News reported overnight:
Janet Protasiewicz, a judge on the Milwaukee County Circuit Court, has won a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, NBC News projects, giving liberals their first majority on the state’s highest court in 15 years. Protasiewicz defeated conservative Dan Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, on Tuesday in what became the most expensive state Supreme Court race in U.S. history and one of the most closely watched elections of 2023.
With just about all of the votes tallied, the race wasn’t especially close: Protasiewicz appears to have won by more than 10 points.
For the right, the results are a disaster. Though technically the election was non-partisan, Republicans rallied behind former state Supreme Court Justice Dan Kelly, perhaps best known to national audiences as the lawyer who advised the Wisconsin GOP on the fake electors scheme after the 2020 elections.
He didn’t exactly accept defeat gracefully. “I wish that in a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent. But I do not have a worthy opponent to which I can concede,” Kelly said last night. The conservative went on to say his opponent is “a serial liar” who ran a “despicable” campaign.
There’s a reason some folks questioned whether Kelly was capable of being a neutral arbiter of the rule of law.
As for why the Wisconsin race generated so much attention, Protasiewicz’s striking victory gives the left a majority on the state Supreme Court, which is very likely to have dramatic policy implications in the Badger State.
For example, in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade, Wisconsin residents have been confronted with a 19th-century law that bans abortions in nearly all circumstances, curtailing reproductive rights statewide. Protasiewicz made no effort to hide her position as a supporter of abortion rights, and it’s now likely that the 1849 law will be struck down.
What’s more, Wisconsin’s maps are among the most gerrymandered in the nation — a problem Protasiewicz described as “unfair.” If the state Supreme Court rejects Wisconsin Republicans’ state legislative and congressional maps, it will open the door to restoring the state’s democracy and overhauling state policymaking.
Let’s also not forget that after the 2020 elections, the Wisconsin Supreme Court narrowly beat back an effort to throw out votes that Republicans didn’t like. Heading into the 2024 cycle, this is now far less likely to be a concern.
As for the recent trend in one of the nation’s most closely divided electoral battlegrounds, a Politico report added, “Liberal judges have now won three of the last four state Supreme Court elections in Wisconsin, and broadly the party has overperformed expectations in the previous two midterms. Suburban voters nationally have gone from solid Republican voters to more than Democratic Party-curious. As a result, Republicans may be losing at least some of their stranglehold in some key swing states.”
All of which is to say, there was a lot riding on yesterday’s race, and the effects of the results are likely to be dramatic.