Update: Judge Susan Crawford defeated Judge Brad Schimel in the race for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
On Tuesday, April 1, Wisconsinites will elect a Wisconsin Supreme Court justice. The court has had a narrow liberal majority for the past two years, ever since liberal-backed justice Janet Protasiewicz won a seat on the court in 2023. Before that, conservatives held a majority for about a decade and a half.
Now that liberal-leaning Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is retiring, this race will, again, determine whether conservatives or liberals are in control. While this is technically a nonpartisan race, one of the candidates is ideologically conservative and is supported by Republicans, and one is ideologically liberal and supported by Democrats.
The state Supreme Court has been increasingly used to decide political fights on important issues like gerrymandering, abortion and voting rights. We take a look at where the candidates might stand on those issues.
Meet the candidates
Susan Crawford
Who's backing her?
Crawford has lined up more than 175 judicial endorsements, including that of liberal-leaning state Supreme Court Justices Rebecca Dallet, Janet Protasiewicz, Jill Karofsky and outgoing justice Ann Walsh Bradley. She is endorsed by Democratic U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin and organizations like Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, Wisconsin AFL-CIO and Wisconsin Conservation Voters.
A list of endorsements is available on her campaign website.
Crawford’s job history
Crawford started her career as an assistant attorney general with the Wisconsin Department of Justice. She represented the state of Wisconsin in cases in which people being prosecuted in trial courts appealed their cases.
She eventually became the director of criminal appeals. Later, she worked as chief legal counsel for former Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle. She worked in various state agencies, including the Department of Corrections and Department of Natural Resources.
Crawford then worked as a private practice attorney. Her campaign website says that in this role, “She protected voting and workers’ rights, and represented Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin to defend access to reproductive health care.”
Crawford has served as a Dane County Circuit Court judge for nearly seven years and has more than 28 years of job experience since being licensed as an attorney.
Education
Crawford earned a bachelor’s degree from Lawrence University, a master’s degree from Indiana University, and a law degree from the University of Iowa College of Law in 1994.
Issues
Abortion: Crawford says women should be able to make their own decisions, with their doctors, when it comes to reproductive health care, and that the Dobbs decision that overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022 was wrongly decided. As a private attorney, Crawford represented Planned Parenthood in blocking a 2011 Wisconsin law that made physicians who provide abortion services get admitting privileges at a nearby hospital. But Crawford says that since abortion is an open question currently before the Wisconsin Supreme Court, she won’t take a position on it.
Labor Organizing: Crawford supports protecting workers’ rights. As a private attorney, she opposed Act 10, GOP former Gov. Scott Walker’s signature 2011 law, that limited collective bargaining for most public sector employees, including teachers. She represented teachers who were affected by the law in an attempt to overturn it.
Redistricting: As a private attorney, Crawford filed what’s called an “amicus brief" or “friend of the court” brief in the challenge to Wisconsin’s 2011 GOP-drawn district maps in the U.S. Supreme Court.
She says the Wisconsin Supreme Court was correct in deciding later that Wisconsin’s state legislative maps didn’t comply with the Constitution.
Republicans have accused Crawford of courting donors over redrawing Wisconsin’s congressional maps, which currently lean Republican. They’ve pointed to an email for a “donor advisory briefing” that was headlined “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” Crawford says she didn’t see the email or how it was being billed ahead of the appearance and that she doesn’t think the email “was an appropriate way to announce a judicial candidate.”
Voting rules: As a private attorney, Crawford fought to repeal Wisconsin’s voter ID law. She argued that even though Wisconsin law allows people to cast a provisional ballot and follow-up with an ID within three days, voters who don’t have or can’t get an ID may be disenfranchised.
At the time, she said the state’s voter ID law doesn’t allow a sufficient safety net and said it’s like a poll tax, referencing laws that kept poor people, many of them racial minorities, from voting. Crawford suggested that Wisconsin law should allow voters to sign an affidavit and swear under penalty of perjury that they are an eligible voter and who they say they are.
Crawford won’t say how she’ll vote on the voter ID constitutional amendment on the April 1 ballot, saying, “I just don't think it's appropriate for a judge to weigh in and try to influence voters on something like that.” She says if the constitutional amendment passes, then, “like any part of the Constitution, it could come before the court and have to be interpreted. So I just think it's more proper not to comment.”
Links: Website | Facebook | Twitter | Instagram
Brad Schimel
Who’s backing him?
Schimel is endorsed by more than 50 current Wisconsin county sheriffs and 28 retired Wisconsin sheriffs. He’s also endorsed by several statewide and southeastern Wisconsin police organizations, like the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police, the Wisconsin Professional Police Association and the Milwaukee Police Association.
Schimel is endorsed by GOP U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson and all five of Wisconsin’s Republican congressmen. Republican President Donald Trump has not yet endorsed Schimel, but his advisor Elon Musk’s PAC has been sending out mailers saying that Schimel “will support President Trump’s agenda.”
A list of endorsements is available on his campaign website.
Schimel’s job history
Schimel started his career as an assistant district attorney in Waukesha County, prosecuting criminal cases. He was then elected Waukesha County District Attorney and served in that role for about a decade. In 2014, he was elected Wisconsin Attorney General, serving one term.
During Schimel’s tenure as attorney general, he signed on to federal lawsuits brought by Republican attorneys general against policies of Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration. Some of those lawsuits challenged the Affordable Care Act, facilities for transgender students and environmental regulations.
After an unsuccessful bid for a second term as attorney general, Schimel was appointed as a judge in Waukesha Circuit Court in 2018 by former GOP Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He was elected to a six-year term in 2019.
Education
Schimel attended UW-Waukesha for two years and then finished his bachelor’s degree at UW-Milwaukee. He received his law degree from UW-Madison School of Law in 1990.
Issues
Abortion: Schimel says he “treasures life even when it’s unplanned.” He says the 1849 Wisconsin law that criminalizes abortion in all circumstances except to save the life of the mother is a “valid law,” but that it “doesn’t reflect the will of the people.” Schimel says the issue of abortion should be decided by the Legislature or by Wisconsin voters via ballot measure.
When he was a district attorney, Schimel signed onto a paper authored by Wisconsin Right to Life that advocated for a plan to make abortion illegal in nearly all cases.
Schimel says he won’t take a position on whether there’s a constitutional right to an abortion in Wisconsin, because that issue is currently before the state’s highest court. He says, though, that the word “abortion” doesn’t appear in the Wisconsin Constitution, “so if there’s a constitutional right there, someone’s going to have to make a creative legal argument to explain where that is.”
Labor Organizing: Schimel notes that by the time he was elected attorney general in 2014, the Act 10 cases – about the GOP-backed-and-passed law that limited collective bargaining for most public sector employees — had wrapped up in state and federal courts. Schimel says he would have defended the law when he was attorney general.
Redistricting: As attorney general, Schimel defended Wisconsin’s 2011 Republican-drawn redistricting maps before the U.S. Supreme Court. When asked in a debate this year whether he believes Wisconsin’s current congressional maps are fair, Schimel said, “that's not my decision to make. The Legislature passes those maps. The governor signs them. Sometimes courts have to take a look at that when there's a dispute that they can't reach an agreement on something. But it's not for me to say whether they're fair or not.”
Voting rules: Schimel supports Wisconsin’s 2011 voter ID law and has asserted that it helped Republican President Donald Trump win the state. Schimel says the voter ID law “favors integrity,” and that he will be voting “yes” on the constitutional amendment before voters on April 1.
Schimel says it was a mistake for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2020 not to hear the case about whether the Wisconsin Elections Commission could keep Jill Stein, a Green Party presidential candidate, on the ballot. Ultimately, Stein stayed on the ballot in 2020, and Schimel claims that decision affected the outcome of the election because Donald Trump lost that election by about 21,000 votes and the Green Party usually amasses around 30,000 votes.
As noted by guides.vote, as attorney general, Schimel also attempted to limit early voting in Milwaukee and Madison.
