Pennsylvania, Wisconsin in the spotlight with high-stakes court elections

Republicans put Pennsylvania and Wisconsin back in the win column in the 2024 presidential race, and they’re hoping that momentum carries over to contests this year that will determine whether their state Supreme Courts retain left-leaning majorities or flip to conservative control.

The outcome can be pivotal in deciding cases related to abortion, election disputes, voting laws and redistricting for Congress and their state legislatures.

Money is pouring in and expected to eclipse the $70 million-plus combined spent on the states’ Supreme Court races two years ago.

The Wisconsin race has caught the attention of Elon Musk, the SpaceX and Tesla CEO who is a close ally of President Donald Trump, and has surfaced tensions related to Trump’s pardons of his supporters who stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

“For both sides, these races seem much, much higher profile than they used to be,” said J.J. Abbott, who runs Commonwealth Communications, a progressive advocacy group in Pennsylvania.

State Supreme Court races have become some of the most expensive and bitterly fought over the past few years, given how central those courts are in deciding divisive issues.

Republicans are intent on flipping the courts

Republicans are optimistic after Trump won both states in November.

The courts there have played major roles since both states have divided governments, with Democratic governors and legislatures that are either fully or partially under Republican control.

In the past couple years alone, liberal majorities on both states’ high courts handed victories to Democrats in cases involving the boundaries of Wisconsin’s legislative districts and Pennsylvania’s congressional districts.

Victories for Democrats or their allies in voting rights cases also included overturning Wisconsin’s ban on absentee ballot drop boxes and ensuring Pennsylvanians can vote by provisional ballot if their mail ballot is rejected.

Musk cited the Wisconsin drop box ruling, which came last July, in a message posted this past week on his social platform X: “Very important to vote Republican for the Wisconsin Supreme Court to prevent voting fraud!”

A recount, nonpartisan audit and report by a conservative law firm all affirmed that there was no widespread fraud in Wisconsin in 2020, when absentee ballot boxes were in use, and that Democrat Joe Biden won the state’s presidential contest.

The Democratic-supported candidate in Wisconsin’s officially nonpartisan race quickly seized on Musk’s involvement to make a fundraising pitch.

Liberals also were highlighting comments from the Republican-backed candidate earlier this month saying those who stormed the U.S. Capitol never got “a fair shot” in court. Harry Dunn, a former U.S. Capitol Police officer who was on duty during the attack, plans news conferences in Wisconsin on Tuesday to criticize the remarks critical of the prosecutions.

In the upcoming races, Democrats say they will portray the state high courts as a bulwark against the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court, the Trump administration and a GOP-controlled Congress.

The issue of abortion rights is expected to play a major role this year, as it did in high court races last year and in 2023’s state Supreme Court campaigns in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania. Those races took place the year after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade and ended nearly a half-century of a constitutional right to abortion.

Early Wisconsin race will test nation’s political mood

Wisconsin’s election is April 1 to replace a retiring liberal justice and will decide whether liberals or conservatives will control a 4-3 majority.

Nick Ramos, executive director of the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks spending in elections, said the race could go either way in a state where voters handed narrow victories in November to Trump, a Republican, and U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, a Democrat.

“After the presidential election season, people around the country are going to be looking at Wisconsin as a bellwether, as a litmus test of what the mood of the country is,” Ramos said.

The Wisconsin Democratic Party has endorsed Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford. Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, is endorsed by various conservative officeholders and groups.

Significant cases looming in Wisconsin’s courts include challenges to the state’s 1849 abortion ban and a 2011 law that all but ended collective bargaining for teachers and other public sector workers.

Big spending expected from outside groups

In Pennsylvania, November’s general election will feature three Democrats running to retain their seats, putting Democrats’ 5-2 majority on the line. All three justices — Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty and David Wecht — face a “yes” or “no” vote to win another 10-year term.

Pending in Pennsylvania courts are cases that challenge laws limiting the use of Medicaid to cover the cost of abortions and requiring certain mail-in ballots to be disqualified.

In 2023, business associations, political party campaign arms, Planned Parenthood, partisan advocacy groups, labor unions, lawyers’ groups, environmental organizations and wealthy GOP donors, including Richard Uihlein and Jeffrey Yass, pushed spending above $70 million in Wisconsin and Pennsylvania.

The Wisconsin race alone topped $51 million, breaking national records for spending on a judicial race.

Abortion rights were the dominant theme in that contest, won by a Democratic-backed judge whose victory gave liberals majority control of the court for the first time in 15 years.

Wisconsin’s race this year is expected to cost even more, with the two candidates already raising more than was brought in at this point in 2023.

Schimel, in an interview last year on WISN-AM, said outside groups “are committed to making sure we take back the majority on this court” and that he was confident “we’re going to have the money to do the things we have to do to win this.”

He recently launched a $1.1 million television ad buy statewide, marking the first spending on TV ads in the race. Crawford went on the air a week later.

Spending exceeded $22 million in Pennsylvania’s 2023 contest won by the Democrat, whose campaign focused on attackingrulings by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority.

Both sides strategize on overcoming voter fatigue

Wisconsin Democratic strategist Melissa Baldauff said she thinks voter fatigue is a concern for both sides in the Supreme Court race there, with the election coming just months after the state was inundated with TV ads, candidate appearances, direct mail and phone calls in the presidential race.

The best strategy is for their candidate to travel the state and meet directly with voters, Baldauff said.

“You can’t ever underestimate the power of getting around and talking to people and literally meeting people where they are,” she said.

Michelle McFall, the Democratic Party chair in Pennsylvania’s Westmoreland County, said the coming retention races dominated talk at a recent meeting of the state Democratic Party.

She said Democrats were concerned their voters will become distracted by Trump’s actions as president — “because it’s what we do” — and that party leaders need to keep the focus on defending their court majority.

They need to boost efforts to reach both urban and rural voters and take lessons from Trump’s winning campaign to use new and unconventional pathways to get their message out, McFall said.

Republicans say it’s too early to know how much money will arrive to boost any campaign to contest the retention races. The success of a “No” campaign could depend on whether the GOP marshals high-level support.

“One question,” said GOP insider Charlie Gerow, “is how big will President Trump weigh in on this issue.”

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Bauer reported from Madison, Wisconsin.