A long-fought race to fill a seat on the Wisconsin supreme court that has brought in tens of millions of dollars in outside spending ahead of the election will finally be decided on Tuesday, and Democrats are hopeful that their efforts to alter the states’ most fundamental levers of political power will prevail. 

The liberal candidate, a Milwaukee County circuit judge, Janet Protasiewicz, will face off with a conservative former justice, Daniel Kelly. Judge Protasiewicz has promised to vote to overturn an antebellum law banning abortion in the state, while Justice Kelly has hinged his campaign on Wisconsinites’ fears about rising crime. 

“She believes women should have the freedom to make their own decision on abortion,” a recent television ad from the liberal judge’s campaign said. “Extremist Dan Kelly? He supports the 1849 law that takes away women’s rights and criminalizes abortion.”

The Waukesha County sheriff, Eric Severson, who supports Justice Kelly, criticized Judge Protasiewicz in a recent advertisement. She has been “directly undermining” law enforcement during her career, he said. In another ad reminiscent of the famous “Willie Horton” spot from the 1988 presidential election, Justice Kelly’s campaign highlighted the case of a child rapist who received no jail time at the behest of Judge Protasiewicz. 

The seven-member state supreme court has been controlled by a conservative majority for more than a decade. The retirement of Justice Patience Roggensack left open a seat on the bench that would flip control to the liberal jurists should Judge Protasiewicz win.

Like in the 2022 midterms, the question of abortion rights could boost the Democratic side in Wisconsin. Last year, several states held ballot initiatives to determine the question of when and where abortion is permissible. In every state — from Vermont to Montana — the pro-abortion rights activists were victorious. 

A Waukesha County resident who voted for President Trump in 2020, Henry von Hagke, told the Sun that he will vote for Judge Protasiewicz despite his generally conservative politics. “I am voting for Janet because I believe that women have the right to choose what they do with their body,” he said. “That’s their choice and forcing someone to have a child when they aren’t ready or for any other circumstance is wrong.”

According to WisPolitics, the race has become the most expensive judicial election in American history, with more than $45 million spent so far. Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign has raised $15 million and Justice Kelly’s has raised $12 million. Nationwide, Democrats have paid close attention to the race, allowing Judge Protasiewicz to receive contributions from tens of thousands of out-of-state individuals. 

Billionaires have also planted their flags. Governor Pritzker, George Soros, and the Schusterman family of Oklahoma in recent weeks each gave $1 million to the state Democratic Party, which has been used to spend on Judge Protasiewicz’s campaign. Shipping magnates Richard and Elizabeth Uihlein have donated $4.5 million to boost Justice Kelly since the beginning of this year. 

Judge Protasiewicz defended her solicitation of high-dollar donors, saying it helps to even the playing field. “That helps me to communicate with people all over the state,” she said in an interview with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “That gives me the ability to be on TV. That gives me the ability to be on digital. That gives me the ability to travel all over the state and meet people.”

The race has profound implications for the legislative branches in both Madison and Washington, D.C. Wisconsin Republicans have been criticized for drawing one of the most skewed legislative maps in the country, which essentially cements their majority in the state house. In 2018, Democratic candidates for the state assembly won 53 percent of the votes statewide, but only won 36 of the state’s 99 assembly seats. 

The conservative majority has so far blocked any challenge to the Republican-drawn maps. Last year, in a 4–3 decision, the court handed Republicans a major win when it upheld the district maps. Democrats hope a Justice Protasiewicz would vote with the other liberal justices to order a redrawing of the district lines.

As a pivotal swing state, Wisconsin will be critical for whoever hopes to win the White House in 2024. In 2020, President Trump sued the state to have 220,000 votes thrown out from the most heavily Democratic districts. In a 4–3 decision, a conservative justice, Brian Hagedorn, joined with the three liberals to throw out the case. Justice Kelly has said that President Biden was “duly elected.”

After losing his election to remain on the court in 2020, Justice Kelly was paid $120,000 by the state and national Republican parties to advise on “election integrity issues,” and he had “extensive conversations” about how to flip Wisconsin into Mr. Trump’s column before the certification on January 6, 2021, according to a former state GOP chairman, Andrew Hitt. 

The balance of the court will likely help Governor Evers as well. In December 2018, weeks after Governor Walker was defeated by Mr. Evers, Republicans in the state legislature moved to curtail the powers of the governor’s office before a Democrat took over. 

The package of laws, signed by Mr. Walker just weeks before he left office, curtailed the governor’s power in making appointments, issuing executive orders, and enforcing state laws. It also mandated that Mr. Evers was not be allowed to make any changes to the state’s jobs agency for the first nine months of his tenure. 

The conservative justices sided with Republicans when Mr. Evers and the state attorney general, Josh Kaul, sued over the restraints placed on the governor’s office. Democrats now believe that getting Judge Protasiewicz on to the bench would unshackle Mr. Evers if he were to sue again. 

The way congressional maps are drawn in the state also gives an outsize advantage to Republicans. In 2018, Democratic candidates for the U.S. House in Wisconsin won a majority of the votes, but only carried three of the state’s eight congressional districts.

Like with the state legislative maps, the state supreme court has blocked challenges to the congressional maps in the past. Democrats hope Judge Protasiewicz would help weaken Republicans’ hold on the state and shrink the GOP’s already slim House majorities. 

Judge Protasiewicz and Justice Kelly ran in a “jungle primary” — meaning all candidates, regardless of ideological affiliation, compete for one of the top two slots in one round of voting in the hopes of making it to the second round. 

The first round, which was held in February, saw the two liberal candidates garner a combined total of 53.8 percent, while Justice Kelly and his conservative competitor won 46.2 percent.