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Chris Taylor, the Democratic-backed candidate and a Wisconsin Appeals Court judge, won election to the state Supreme Court on Tuesday, defeating Republican-backed Maria Lazar and increasing the court’s liberal majority, the Associated Press reported. Taylor’s victory comes as Wisconsin prepares for new legal fights tied to congressional redistricting, union rights and abortion policy, set against the backdrop of an early-November election in which Democrats seek to keep the governor’s office and flip the state Legislature.
Taylor emphasized abortion rights during her campaign, and she said in a victory speech, “Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary, not the billionaires, not the most powerful and privileged, but the people.” The AP report said her campaign included messaging that “abortion is on the ballot,” along with attacks on Lazar’s description of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade.
In response to Lazar’s defeat, Wisconsin Republican Party Chair Brian Schimming called for Republicans to “stay united and continue fighting for our conservative values.” The AP account said that Republicans and Democrats framed the race as part of a larger contest over the direction of the courts and state politics, with Democrats tightening their control of the Supreme Court shortly before the November elections.
The AP reported that Taylor’s win marked the fourth straight election victory for liberal court candidates dating back to 2020, and that liberals are now guaranteed to hold a majority on the court until at least 2030. It also said the seat was open because of the retirement of a conservative justice, and that while the court races are officially nonpartisan, party-aligned support shaped the contest.
The AP said the political stakes are heightened by the Supreme Court’s role in disputes tied to voting and legislative power. It reported that the court under liberal control reversed several election-related rulings, including a decision that overturned a ban on absentee ballot drop boxes, and that new challenges over legislative maps are expected to follow the court’s shift in control.
Democrats have pointed to a broader record of the court’s liberal majority as they look toward the next election cycle, with the AP report describing how the party tightened control months before November. It said liberals argued that democracy was at stake in the 2025 election, including a reference to a prior moment when conservative justices were one vote short of siding with President Donald Trump in his efforts to invalidate enough votes to overturn his loss in the 2020 presidential election.
The AP report contrasted this year’s race with earlier Supreme Court contests in swing-state Wisconsin, saying spending and national attention were down dramatically this year without control of the court at stake. It noted that in 2024, involvement from Trump and billionaires George Soros and Elon Musk included checks given to voters, and it described Democrats as having used that experience to make the case that control of the court matters.
The AP said the candidates both serve as judges on the state’s appeals court. It reported that Taylor has been a judge since 2020 and previously worked for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, and that before her judicial service she represented Madison as a Democrat in the state Assembly for 10 years.
The AP also said Lazar has been a judge since 2015 and previously worked for four years under Republican attorney general Scott Walker in Wisconsin’s Department of Justice. It reported that in that role she defended a law enacted under Walker that effectively ended collective bargaining for most public workers, and that a circuit court judge ruled in December that the law is unconstitutional, a decision expected to reach the state Supreme Court.
During the campaign, the AP report said Lazar tried to portray Taylor as a politician who would push a partisan agenda on the bench. It said Taylor and Lazar argued over each other’s partisanship during the campaign’s sole debate last week, with Lazar accusing Taylor of being a “radical, extreme legislator” and a “judicial activist,” while Taylor said Lazar would bring “an extreme, right-wing political agenda to the bench.”
The AP report said Taylor also held a major fundraising and advertising advantage, spending about nine times as much on television ads as Lazar, based on a tally by the Brennan Center for Justice. With another conservative justice retiring next year, the AP said the court could move further toward a 6-1 liberal configuration if Taylor’s victory holds under the court’s next lineup.