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| Justice-Elect Janet Protasiewicz |
Despite there being no public polling in the race, most people (including me) thought that Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz was the favorite to win the election against conservative former Justice Daniel Kelly, but I was not going to celebrate prematurely. In 2011 & 2019, Democrats dropped the ball in consequential Supreme Court races at the finish line, in both cases by less than 8000 votes (literally both were 50.2-49.7 margins). This has been a long-time coming, and I'll be honest-I didn't know if this would ever actually happen (more on just how much they had do to get here in a second).
But it did, and Protasiewicz seems to have won by potentially double digits when the votes are completely counted. This is an impressive victory the judge, and one that will be studied, particularly given her strong margins in the Milwaukee suburbs (something Joe Biden & Tammy Baldwin will be eager to repeat next year). Protasiewicz did this with an unconventional campaign, highlighting her willingness to align on major progressive reform issues like gerrymandering & abortion rights, rather than try to demur when it came to major political issues. This was similar to Kelly, who has been adamant about his hardline conservative beliefs, but was criticized by the Republicans. I think it was a step forward, personally-if we are going to elect judges (whether this is appropriate is a genuine question mark), we should at least admit that those elections are decided largely on partisan lines, and by increasingly partisan actors on the judiciary. Protasiewicz didn't start this politicization-Sameul Alito & Clarence Thomas did.
And indeed, Thomas & Alito are in a big way responsible for Protasiewicz winning, coming out of their Dobbs decision. Abortion rights, which helped to elect a number of Democrats last year (including Wisconsin's governor & attorney general), were a huge contributor to Protasiewicz victory. While Republicans made a point of trying to highlight crime, once again this didn't really work-abortion rights continues to be a potent driver of voters in swing/blue states, and a huge hindrance for the GOP in trying to gain control there.
It helped that Protasiewicz was able to say (credibly) that she was running in a nonpartisan race (so pro-choice Republicans wouldn't have to worry about having to actually vote for a Democrat), and that Wisconsin voters were able to draw a direct line of voting for her to bringing abortion rights back to the Badger State. There is now immense pressure on Protasiewicz & her fellow progressive judges to deliver on that promise, but that feels easy. I suspect shortly after her swearing in in August, we will see abortion rights return to Wisconsin, an enormous & proud victory for the pro-choice movement after they scored a lot of wins last year as well.
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| Former Justice Daniel Kelly |
Republicans did win a State Senate seat last night (albeit by a surprisingly small margin), which gives them a 2/3 majority in the State Senate on top of a majority in the State Assembly. Republicans, irate at what they thought was an insurmountable gerrymander going by the wayside, have threatened to impeach & remove Protasiewicz so that she cannot take office, in hopes of keeping her off of the bench and giving progressives the majority.
This won't work for three reasons. For starters, Republicans would need every member of the State Senate to back this (there's no room for even one deferment)-that's going to be hard to do. Second even if it did go through, Tony Evers gets to appoint her replacement, and he would certainly appoint a progressive Democrat (maybe even reappoint Protasiewicz if that was allowed), so this would (at best) just mean that Protasiewicz has to win a second time before the 2024 elections while pissing off a lot of people that Republicans need to win in a redrawn map. And third, there's no way around Evers. One of the remarkable things about this is, in order to safely overturn the state gerrymanders, the Democrats essentially needed to win eight offices at the same time: four Supreme Court races, the Attorney General's office so that they could implement these laws without issue for the Wisconsin Justice Department, the governor's office to make sure any impeachment is for naught, and both of the offices in line to the governor's mansion (Lieutenant Governor & Secretary of State) to ensure that they couldn't impeach Evers to get what they wanted. If even one of those seats fall, the Republicans have a way in to stop the redrawing of the legislative lines. The Democrats, in some cases by infinitesimal margins (they won the Secretary of State's office by 0.3 percentage points), but they pulled it off, and absolutely insane win & a testament to the resilience of the state's party leaders. And as a result, there's no practical way for the GOP to overturn Protasiewicz win-even attempting it seems foolish, since short of the US Supreme Court getting involved (which feels unlikely, especially for the state legislature), I don't see how they avoid a new map in 2024.
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| House Minority Leader Greta Neubauer (D-WI) |
Currently the state, despite Wisconsin being a quintessential swing state that in 2018 & 2022, voted a majority of its statewide offices to the Democrats, does not have an even balance in the state legislature. The State Senate the Republicans have two-thirds of the seats, and in the State Assembly they have nearly that number. This is due entirely to the most egregious & unfair gerrymander in the country, and one that even the bluest of waves hasn't made a dent within...
...until now. Protasiewicz victory ensures that the highly-gerrymandered state legislatures will almost certainly get new maps (she basically campaigned on it). Wisconsin is a unique state in terms of its geography, and because of the way maps are drawn, it is difficult to have a properly 50/50 map. Most of the Democrats live in dense clusters around Madison & Milwaukee, meaning that it's harder to draw a truly even map; my gut says that when these are finished being drawn, even with a progressive majority, Trump districts could outnumber Biden districts. But it will mean that the Democrats have a fighting chance to hold the majorities for the first time in decades (and Republicans will no longer be able to have a veto-proof majority), and you could tell that Democratic legislative leaders Melissa Agard & Greta Neubauer were through-the-moon at the certainty their ranks would increase in 2024, possibly enough to get them into the Majority Leader positions.
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| Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) |
It is also probable that the Supreme Court will also revisit, if not overturn, the US House maps in Wisconsin as well. Though Wisconsin's geography makes drawing a 4-4 map tough, a redraw to make a more competitive race in the Southwestern portion of the state (including Eau Claire & La Crosse along the Minnesota border) and the southeastern portion of the state (including Kenosha, Janesville, and some of the Milwaukee suburbs), if not an outright blue one for the Eau Claire seat, is achievable. Republicans Derrick van Orden & Bryan Steil currently represent these seats, and are likely to either be facing a tossup seat next year, or one where they could be the underdogs after getting easy races in 2022. With a near-certain mid-decade redistricting in North Carolina on the table for the 2024 election, the Wisconsin Supreme Court would be able to even out the playing field a bit as Democrats try to regain the House.
The other consequence of this is that Democrats don't have to worry about Republican chicanery in the state legislature next year should they win the electoral college votes in the state. Kelly was a part of the "Stop the Steal" movement in the state, with him allegedly being involved in a fake elector scheme to try and throw the election to Donald Trump. With him on the Court, there would've been a lot more concern that a close election similar to 2020 might invite Republicans in the state legislature and on the Court to overturn the results to favor the Republican nominee. That is not a concern now, and Wisconsin voters can vote next year knowing that their vote will not be cast aside if they don't go with the state legislature.
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