How Wisconsin Supreme Court Race Could Affect Balance of Power in Congress

The razor-thin Republican majority in the U.S. House of Representatives could hinge on the outcome of a Wisconsin Supreme Court election set for April 1 between Republican-supported candidate Brad Schimel and Democrat-backed candidate Susan Crawford.

Elections for the highest court in the Badger State are officially nonpartisan, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court has seven justices, and the election is to replace outgoing liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley. The remaining six seats on the court are evenly split among conservatives and liberals; meaning, the outcome of the race likely will determine the ideological balance of the court going forward. 

The Daily Signal spoke with Steve Cortes, a senior political adviser at CatholicVote, a political advocacy organization involved in the Wisconsin race. He pointed to what the Wisconsin Supreme Court may do to affect the Republican House majority through its dictation of congressional redistricting in the state.

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Wisconsin Democrats are “promising donors and voters that they can pick up two additional U.S. House seats by redrawing the [congressional districts] map in a way that is favorable to the Democrats,” Cortes explained.

The subject line for a recent meeting between Democrat donors and Crawford was “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” The event was reportedly organized by aides to tech billionaire Reid Hoffman, a megadonor to the Democratic Party of Wisconsin, having given more than more than $14.5 million.

For her part, Crawford has not hidden many of her policy preferences. While she was in private legal practice, Crawford sought to prevent a voter-ID law from becoming law in Wisconsin while representing the League of Women Voters.

“It’s very much like a poll tax,” Crawford said about the voter-ID law, claiming that it was comparable to laws designed to disenfranchise minority voters. She has also called voter-ID laws “draconian” despite the fact that, according to a recent poll, such measures are supported by 87% of Wisconsin registered voters. 

Crawford has also represented Planned Parenthood, and she has been endorsed by Planned Parenthood Advocates of Wisconsin. She touted her work for the organization, saying, “At the same time, I’m proud of the work that I did as a lawyer in our courts fighting for people’s rights, including Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and their doctors, to protect their right to deliver health care services to women without having to be in fear of felony prosecution for doing it.”

Cortes noted how competitive the race in Wisconsin is going to be.

President Donald Trump won Wisconsin in 2024 “by only 29,000 votes, and the last several cycles, we’ve had similar margins of victory in Wisconsin. So, as sort of the ultimate swing state, it matters enormously to the entire country,” Cortes said. 

Schimel serves as a judge on the Wisconsin Circuit Court, to which he was appointed by then-Gov. Scott Walker, a Republican. He previously served as Wisconsin’s attorney general from 2015 to 2019.

Cortes told The Daily Signal that conservatives have a chance to return the court to “judicial restraints, to respect for the Constitution, to deference to the legislature.”