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Endorses Lazar

The race

Wisconsin elected a supreme court justice in its spring election on April 7, 2026 — this race is already decided, and this page is the permanent record of it. Conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley did not seek re-election, so the seat was open. Because liberals already held a 4–3 majority, the election could not flip the court: a win for the conservative, Maria S. Lazar, would have held the majority at 4–3; a win for the liberal, Chris Taylor, would expand it to 5–2. Taylor won decisively, 60.1% to Lazar's 39.8% — roughly 905,155 votes to 600,044 — the largest margin in a contested Wisconsin Supreme Court race since 2000. Taylor was sworn in on August 1, 2026, and the liberal majority is now secured until at least 2030. The race was officially nonpartisan; both candidates were identified by their backing and records, Taylor as the Democratic-backed liberal and Lazar as the Republican-backed conservative, and it drew under $9 million in spending — quiet by the standards of Wisconsin's $45 million (2023) and $100 million (2025) court races.

Chris Taylor — Winner. Taylor, 58 at the election, served as a Democratic member of the Wisconsin Assembly from 2011 to 2020, and before politics as public policy director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin. Governor Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020; she moved to District IV of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals in 2023. Her campaign described her judicial philosophy as "people-centered," grounded in fair chances and constitutional rights, with the judiciary as a check on the other branches. As an appellate judge she wrote a majority opinion adopting a lenient standard for what counts as a valid absentee-ballot address — enough information for a clerk to reasonably identify where the voter lives — rejecting the Legislature's stricter argument. In the Legislature she had called for repealing Wisconsin's voter ID law. The court's liberal justices endorsed her.

Maria S. Lazar — Runner-up. Lazar, 62, served on the Waukesha-based District II Court of Appeals from 2022 and the Waukesha County Circuit Court from 2015 to 2021. Before the bench she was an assistant attorney general under Republican Attorneys General J.B. Van Hollen and Brad Schimel (2010–2015), where she defended Wisconsin's voter ID law, represented Republican lawmakers in litigation over Act 10 (the law that ended most public-sector collective bargaining), defended the 2011 legislative maps, and represented the state in Planned Parenthood's challenge to the abortion admitting-privileges law. Her stated judicial philosophy: written laws are a fundamental pillar of democracy; a judge must be independent of agendas, parties, and bias; the law is a level playing field where no person is above or beneath it. She was endorsed by Pro-Life Wisconsin in her 2022 appeals campaign. She is not a member of a political party, per her campaign.

Pros and cons

Taylor: Credits: A real appellate record — three years on the Court of Appeals after three on a circuit court — and nine years as a legislator, so she has written both laws and opinions; a 20-point statewide win is durable democratic legitimacy for the seat. Dirt and debits: Her career is a documented progressive advocacy career: Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin's public policy director, a Democratic assemblywoman who sought to repeal voter ID, and the liberal justices' endorsed successor — that is the profile of a movement jurist, not a restrained one; her absentee-address opinion chose the reading that loosened the Legislature's election rules, which under our doctrine is the kind of election-law activism that prices heaviest.

Lazar: Credits: The full conservative legal formation — a Republican AG's office defending voter ID, Act 10, and the Legislature's maps against constitutional attack, then eleven years on two benches; a stated textualist philosophy (written law as pillar, judge independent of agendas, level playing field); defending the state's laws as an assistant AG is the executive-branch lawyer's duty, and she did it for the laws this page supports. Dirt and debits: In December 2023 she joined an appellate panel that reached the opposite conclusion from a sister panel on an election-records question, despite state supreme court precedent that only the high court can overturn appellate decisions — a documented instance, reported by the Wisconsin Law Journal, of a panel straining against precedent, and it is the heaviest single item in her judicial file; the sitting chief justice publicly accused her of carrying "the flag of the right-wing interests" as an AG, which we print as a partisan opponent's characterization, not a finding — the underlying case list is fact, the flag metaphor is politics.

Record gaps

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Maria S. Lazar. The disclosed basis is career record and stated philosophy. Lazar spent her pre-bench career defending the laws of Wisconsin — voter ID, Act 10, the maps — as the state's lawyer, then judged for eleven years under a philosophy she states in textualist terms: the written law governs, the judge is independent of agendas, and the field is level. Taylor is able and experienced, and we credit her service; her formation — Planned Parenthood policy director, Democratic legislator against voter ID, the liberal bloc's chosen successor, an election-law opinion loosening the Legislature's rules — is a proven progressive record, and under our doctrine that does not earn this page's support. Lazar's 2023 precedent-straining panel vote is priced above as her file's worst item; one panel vote does not outweigh two careers running in opposite directions. Wisconsin's voters chose otherwise on April 7, 2026 — Taylor won 60.1% to 39.8%, and the court's liberal majority stands at 5–2 through at least 2030. Our pick lost. It stays in the record exactly as made, because a coverage page that only endorses winners is worth nothing in 2028.

For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.

Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.

Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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