On April 1, the people of Wisconsin had an election on three issues: A race for state Supreme Court, a race for state Superintendent, and a constitutional amendment to require ID to vote.
In the weeks leading up to the election, I traveled to Wisconsin with fellow Washtenaw Republican Club leader Eric Lielbriedis. Our mission was to do what we could, and to learn what we could.
Here’s what we learned from our trip.
Voter ID Wins, But Does Not Drive Turnout
63–37. Almost two-to-one. Everyone expected voter ID to pass, and Democrats spent no money to stop what they knew was inevitable, but this was an absolute blowout.
However, it is not clear that the proposal had any impact on turnout. This is an important issue for conservatives. I have heard many conservative activists say, “We need to put Voter ID in the ballot, because it will get Republican voters to turn out.”
I was skeptical of this, and remain skeptical. Because despite Voter ID winning at the polls, Republicans lost both of the other races.
Voters chose to keep the left-wing nutcase incumbent for State Superintendent Jill Underly, over Republican challenger Brittany Kinzer 53–47. Worse still, left-wing extremist Susan Crawford beat rule-of-law Brad Schimel by a decisive 54–45 to cement the Democrats’ control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
So what happened in these races?
The State Superintendent race was simply not on people’s radar. There was virtually no money spent on the race. All of the money was on the Supreme Court race. Still, the incumbent undoubtedly had the support of the teacher unions, the education industry, and the usual institutional support of the Left, whereas Brittany Kinzer had virtually nothing.
Voters Do Not Understand Judicial Activism
I can tell you from speaking to many Wisconsin voters that the issue of judicial activism is simply not on the minds of ordinary voters. That’s painful for me to say as somebody who watches with horror as activist judges have been attacking the Trump agenda and violating the Article II power of the Executive Branch.
(If only Trump had the opportunity to speak to the American people, like an address to Congress, when he could have raised the issue.)
Voters do not understand that Democrat judges trample over the law and Republican judges follow it to a fault.
I’m not talking about the Madison liberals. I spoke to voters in generally conservative areas like Waukesha. I encountered a few left-wingers, of course. But I’m talking about ordinary Wisconsinites when I say that “activist judges” is not a hot button for them. They are just not familiar with the term in the way that Republicans are.
In 2024, President Trump won Michigan, but both Republican candidates for state Supreme Court were clobbered. At the time I wondered how much of this was due to the problems with the state Republican Party and the candidates not having their own base of support, versus something going on with the electorate.
Now we know what the results are when the money goes all in, and indeed in Wisconsin, it did. The state Supreme Court race was by far the most expensive state race in American history. More than $90 million was spent.
There is a substantial number of swing voters — and I got the sense that most were women — that seemed to feel that Democrat judges are “safer” than Republican judges. Democrats were loudly claiming (falsely) that Brad Schimel would have banned all abortion in Wisconsin.
The Democrats’ (false) messaging is working on independent voters. Republicans’ messaging is not.
This is a problem that the Republican Party must face. If we don’t, we will lose the courts for good.
Room For Improvement
In the two weeks I was in Wisconsin, I heard hundreds of ads for (and against) Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel. You could not escape them. Almost every ad on my phone was for the race. Almost every ad on every television was for the race. They were everywhere.
And yet, despite that, I must say that I felt that I still know almost nothing about Brad Schimel. I don’t know whether he is married. I don’t know what his voice sounds like. I don’t know anything about his accomplishments as Attorney General of Wisconsin, amazingly.
I know that he is in a band, interestingly. But I learned that only because a voter told me.
None of the ads in support of Brad Schimel did anything to humanize him as a candidate.
The Republicans accused Crawford of being soft on crime. The Democrats accused Schimel of being soft on crime.
The Democrats accused Schimel of being a mysogynist who would ban abortions. The Republicans did not accuse Crawford of being any kind of extremist.
And that was about it. The ads were an absolute blur.
And so Republicans lost on the feel of the candidates.
They could have done better. The best case for any politician is for voters to feel like they know them.
And Schimel’s campaign and the associated efforts did not do enough to do so.
Just as critically, voters need to be educated about the danger of activist judges — and the fact that all Democrat candidates are or will be activist judges.
This is what conservatives must do, as soon as possible.
