Democrats won the most important election of the year on Tuesday night, flipping a Wisconsin Supreme Court seat to give them a majority on the court for the first time in 15 years in the key swing state.
Liberal Judge Janet Protaciewicz’s victory over conservative Judge Dan Kelly means she’ll likely be the deciding vote on a pending lawsuit to reinstate abortion rights in Wisconsin. She’s said that Wisconsin Republicans’ gerrymandered maps, which have kept them in power for more than a decade, are “rigged,” and suggested to VICE News that she’d throw them out. And with the 2024 presidential election looming, she will likely play a crucial role in any disputes around election rules, making her the arbiter in a long-running fight over absentee voting, ballot drop boxes, voter ID laws, and other election fights—and ensuring that any attempts by former President Donald Trump to steal the election like he tried in 2020 will be thwarted.
Videos by VICE
Protaciewicz won by a 55% to 45% margin, a lopsided victory in a state where elections are usually much closer.
Both sides knew the stakes—as evidenced by the whopping $45 million in total spending on the race, by far the most spent on a Supreme Court race in state history.
“Today I’m proud to stand by the promise I’ve made to every Wisconsinite that I will always deliver justice and bring common sense to our supreme court,” Protaciewicz said in her election-night victory speech.
Abortion loomed large in the election. Protaciewicz was unusually open about her views on abortion and other issues that she might decide as a judge, and she and her allies spent heavily on ads highlighting her support of abortion rights—a crucial stance since the court will soon decide whether Wisconsin’s 1849 law banning abortion is constitutional. That law went back into effect when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the national right to an abortion in 2020. The pro-abortion rights group EMILY’s List spent heavily for her, the first time the organization has ever gotten involved in a state Supreme Court race.
Kelly received massive support from anti-abortion rights groups like the Susan B. Anthony List. His ads mostly focused on crime, accusing Protaciewicz of doling out short sentences to violent criminals.
But Kelly was a flawed candidate with a caustic personality who had already lost a previous state Supreme Court race by a double-digit margin in 2020. Republican strategists were frustrated that he made the runoff election over another judge many thought would have had a better shot in this race.
Kelly flashed that charm during his election-night speech, after it became clear Protaciewicz had secured enough votes to win.
“I wish that in a circumstance like this, I would be able to concede to a worthy opponent. But I do not have a worthy opponent to which I can concede,” he groused, before calling Protaciewicz a “serial liar.”
Republicans may not be done fighting to keep their unchecked power in the state. They appear to have won an open state senate seat that gives them a supermajority in that chamber, and the candidate who won that race and a few other Republicans have floated the possibility of immediately impeaching Protaciewicz to keep her from serving on the court.
That would be arguably the most brazen power grab they’ve attempted in a long string of antidemocratic efforts, but it’s unclear if they’ll actually pursue that plan—especially since Democratic Gov. Tony Evers would appoint her replacement if she’s impeached, and that replacement would serve through the 2024 election.
Protaciewicz told VICE News in February that “everything is on the line” in her election.
“Everything is at stake, and I mean everything: Women’s reproductive rights, the maps, drop boxes, safe communities, clean water,” she said at the time.
She’ll now be the deciding vote.
Want the best of VICE News straight to your inbox? Sign up here.
