Iron, Vilas, and Oneida Counties voted for the liberal Supreme Court Candidate who ended up winning the statewide election.
That’s a shift for the counties that have voted for conservative Supreme Court Candidates in most recent elections. .
JR Ross is the editor of Wispolitics.com and has been covering Wisconsin politics for more than two decades.
Over that time, he’s seen the spring electorate shift away from Republicans and conservatives.
“When I first started doing this, 26 years ago, the spring electorate was considered more conservatives, older, whiter, more suburban than what you saw in November elections,” said Ross. “It's still a little bit like that, but those voters in the suburbs, they're voting for Democrats now, more than they were 25 years ago.”
In 2016, conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley, who did not seek re-election this spring, won 72% in Waukesha County, 68% in Washington County, and 65% in Ozaukee County.
Conservative candidate Maria Lazar won Washington County with 62% of the votes and 54% in Waukesha County. Liberal candidate Chris Taylor won Ozaukee with 52%.
“That is that erosion of support in the suburbs for conservatives/Republicans that we've seen really since Donald Trump came on the scene,” said Ross.
Northwoods counties have voted for conservative justices in the last several Supreme Court elections. Oneida, Vilas, and Iron broke that trend this spring.
A liberal supreme court candidate, Rebecca Dallet, did win Oneida County in 2018 with 52%. In 2023 and 2025 the conservative supreme court candidates won the county with 52% and 54% of votes respectively.
This spring, Taylor won Oneida County with 54%.
Last year, conservative Brad Schimel won Vilas County with 59% of votes. Taylor won the county this year by 34 votes.
Taylor won Iron County this year with 52% of votes. Schimel won it last year with 57% of votes.
Ross cautions people to not read too much into it in terms of what it could mean for the November election.
For one, Taylor outspent Lazar about 8 to 1 statewide and focused a lot of ads in the Wausau/Rhinelander market. Ross says that’s not usually where Democrats spend a lot of money.
“It was a one-sided fight financially, and so that helped produce what you saw,” said Ross.
Ross also says spring elections have typically not been a good indicator for the fall elections.
He broke down some of the elections going back to 2008:
In 2008, conservative Michael Gabelman won by two points over an incumbent justice. Barack Obama won by 14 in November that year.
In 2016, conservative Rebecca Bradley won by almost five points in the Supreme Court race, Donald Trump won Wisconsin by less than a point.
In 2018, a liberal, Rebecca Dallet, won by 10 points. Governor Evers won by 1.1.
In 2020 liberal Jill Karofsky won by 10. Joe Biden won Wisconsin by less than a point.
“There's sometimes where both of the same ideological candidate won, but it was nowhere near the same margin,” said Ross.
About 1.5 million people voted in Wisconsin’s election Tuesday. Wisconsin could see more than 2.5 million in November.
“It's a much different electorate,” said Ross. “You're going to see more engagement from Republicans, especially in terms of turning out voters, in November than you did the April election.”
While there might not be a great correlation between the spring and fall elections, Ross says Tuesday’s election raises some red flags for Republicans. There’s questions on where the state party is in terms of fundraising.
Former Republican Governor Scott Walker brought it up in a social media post Wednesday morning:
“Now, when you talk about the November race for Governor and for the 7th Congressional District, there's going to be national forces at play that come into Wisconsin that can help make up for some of those deficiencies with the state GOP. But you got to acknowledge that Democrats just have a better mouse trap right now when it comes to their apparatus, and that too, unless Donald Trump is on the ballot, Republicans have not done well in Wisconsin last decade,” said Ross.
