Liberal Judge Janet Protasiewicz advanced to the general election in Wisconsin's high-stakes Supreme Court primary on Tuesday, setting up a showdown that will determine the balance of power in the state's top court.
Protasiewicz of the Milwaukee County Circuit Court will face either Waukesha County Circuit Judge Jennifer Dorow or former state Supreme Court Justice Daniel Kelly, but the race among the two conservatives has not yet been called as of Tuesday night.
State law dictates that the top-two vote-getters advance from what was a four-person primary. Although the race was officially nonpartisan, it pitted two conservatives and two liberals with decades of service under their belt against one another. They are all either current or former judges.
Protasiewicz netted 47% of the vote with about half of the ballots counted Tuesday night, besting fellow liberal Judge Everett Mitchell of the Dane County Circuit Court who had 8% of the vote and was eliminated.
The general election race on April 4, expected to be one of the most expensive high court contests in U.S. history, has implications for issues ranging from abortion rights to the 2024 presidential election.
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The winner will succeed conservative Justice Patience Roggensack, who is retiring after spending 20 years on the high court.
A victory for the conservative in the general election will keep the 4-3 conservative tilt of the court intact, while if Protasiewicz wins a 10-year term, it will help liberals overturn one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the land. It could also mean redrawing legislative maps that currently favor Republicans.
"The stakes are huge," Barry Burden, a political science professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the Washington Examiner. "The court has been deciding all of the important issues in Wisconsin over the last several years."
Millions of dollars have already poured in from outside special interest groups, with more on the way. The Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, for example, has promised to spend thousands of dollars on the conservative winner's campaign.
The National Democratic Redistricting Committee and Republican State Leadership Committee are also among the groups expected to dig deep to support their candidate, Politico reported.
Protasiewicz had already raised $1.9 million so far, about a half-million more than the other three candidates combined, according to campaign finance reports.
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The Brennan Center's Buying Time 2023 database shows that more than $6 million in ads have been spent on the primary alone.
Kelly was the first conservative candidate to announce he would be running for the seat. He was appointed to the state Supreme Court in 2016 by then-Gov. Scott Walker but lost his bid to keep the seat in 2020. He has a history of voting with the most conservative justices on the bench.
Dorow began her legal career as a prosecutor and a defense attorney before spending the last decade on the bench. She made headlines in 2022 after sentencing Darrell Brooks, a man who killed six people after driving his car into a Waukesha Christmas parade in 2021, to life in prison. She earned praise for dealing with Brooks, who chose to defend himself and repeatedly caused a ruckus during his trial.
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Protasiewicz has been widely criticized for expressing her views on issues such as abortion and Republican gerrymandering in the technically "nonpartisan" race. In one campaign ad, she said she believes in a "woman's freedom to make her own decision on abortion."
Mitchell also made headlines following the U.S. Supreme Court's decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, saying he would use his "male privilege to stand with and to stand up for women’s reproductive rights.”