Morning Digest: Liberals expand majority on Wisconsin Supreme Court
Chris Taylor's win means liberals will control the body at least until 2030, and the timeline may soon get even worse for conservatives
Leading Off
WI Supreme Court
Progressive Judge Chris Taylor won Tuesday’s election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court by a 60-40 margin against conservative Judge Maria Lazar, an outcome that expands the body’s liberal majority from 4-3 to 5-2.
Taylor’s landslide victory over Lazar in the officially nonpartisan race to succeed retiring conservative Justice Rebecca Bradley means the earliest conservatives can win back control of this swing state’s highest court is 2030.
The timeline, though, could get even worse for conservatives if they lose next year’s race to replace Justice Annette Ziegler, another conservative who has announced that she will not run again. If liberals score another pickup in April of 2027, the soonest that conservatives, who were in the majority from 2008 until 2023, could win back control would be 2033.
Taylor’s win, though, doesn’t give Badger State conservatives much reason to be optimistic they can win their first Supreme Court race since 2019, when Brian Hagedorn narrowly prevailed.
Right-wing donors all but conceded months ago that Lazar wouldn’t break what’s now a four-election losing streak for conservative Supreme Court candidates: AdImpact reports that Taylor and her allies spent $5.8 million on advertising, compared to just over $630,000 for Lazar’s side.
While Wisconsin, which narrowly backed Donald Trump in 2024 four years after it supported Joe Biden, remains one of the most closely divided states in the nation, every conservative since Hagedorn has fallen far short in spring Supreme Court races. Indeed, liberal candidates Jill Karofsky, Janet Protasiewicz, and Susan Crawford each won by the same 55-45 margin in 2020, 2023, and 2025, respectively.
Those identical showings came even though each of the three women ran during very different political climates. Karofsky was on the ballot during the first weeks of the COVID pandemic, Protasiewicz ran during the mid-point of Biden’s presidency, and Crawford went before voters less than three months after Trump reoccupied the White House.
Right-wing contenders didn’t fall short because of a lack of outside interest. Elon Musk, whose network spent $25 million last year, memorably proclaimed that the 2025 race was crucial for “the course of Western civilization” and would “affect the entire destiny of humanity.”
The victorious progressive candidates, though, were boosted by strong turnout from liberal voters in off-year elections, a trend that’s helped Democrats nationwide in special elections ever since Trump began his first term in 2017.
Protasiewicz and Crawford, who were on the ballot after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade, also made support for abortion rights a centerpiece of their campaigns. Taylor adopted the same strategy and framed the contest between her and Lazar as a choice between a supporter of abortion rights and an ardent opponent.
The next progressive standard-bearer will likely adopt a similar message in 2027 and continue to inspire strong turnout from liberal voters. It remains to be seen if well-heeled conservatives will spend to help their eventual candidate counter this, or if they’ll receive the same frosty reception that Lazar did.
Election Recaps
Special Elections
Republican Clayton Fuller defeated Democrat Shawn Harris 56-44 in the special election for Georgia’s 14th Congressional District, which Donald Trump carried 68-31 in 2024. While Fuller didn’t come close to losing, his 12-point win represented a huge 25-point underperformance from Trump’s margin of victory 19 months ago.
Once Fuller, who was elected to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, is sworn in, the GOP’s small majority in the U.S. House will return to 219-214.
Two seats remain vacant: New Jersey’s 11th District, which Democrat Mikie Sherill resigned after being elected governor last year, and California’s 1st District, which Republican Doug LaMalfa represented until his death in January.
Democrat Analilia Mejia is favored to win the April 16 special election to replace Sherill, while Republican James Gallagher is the frontrunner to succeed LaMalfa. Gallagher, though, needs to win a majority of the vote on June 2 in order to avoid a runoff on Aug. 4.
Republican Lanny Thomas also defended Georgia’s 53rd Senate District for his party by a 69-31 margin, a win that nonetheless represented a big drop from Trump’s 79-21 victory here.
Finally, Democrat Sheila Clark Nelson prevailed 71-29 in Georgia’s 130th House District, a small overperformance from Kamala Harris’ 68-32 win.
1Q Fundraising
MI-Sen: Abdul El-Sayed (D): $2.25 million raised
OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D): $10 million raised, $16.5 million cash on hand
SC-Sen: Annie Andrews (D): $2.1 million raised
TX-Sen: John Cornyn (R-inc): $9 million raised
PA-Gov: Stacy Garrity (R): $1 million raised, $1.5 million cash on hand
FL-23: Scott Singer (R): $1.3 million raised (includes $424,000 self-funded)
FL-27: Eliott Rodriguez (D): $312,000 raised (in three weeks)
MD-05: Harry Dunn (D): $2 million raised (in two months)
NV-03: Susie Lee (D-inc): $1 million raised, $3 million cash on hand
NY-03: Mike LiPetri (R): $850,000 raised (in two months)
NY-12: George Conway (D): $3.2 million raised
NY-18: Pat Ryan (D-inc): $700,000 raised, $2.9 million cash on hand
Senate
LA-Sen
A pair of outside groups has launched ads to prevent Louisiana Treasurer John Fleming from advancing out of the May 16 Republican primary for Senate and into the likely runoff.
The Times-Picayune’s Tyler Bridges writes that these are the first commercials attacking Fleming in a nomination battle where two other candidates have attracted most of the attention: incumbent Bill Cassidy, who infuriated the GOP base by voting to convict Donald Trump after the Jan. 6 riots, and Rep. Julia Letlow, who has Trump and Gov. Jeff Landry’s endorsement.
A pro-Letlow group called the Accountability Project uses its ad to accuse Fleming of failing to combat undocumented immigration when he served in the House almost a decade ago.
A commercial from a separate outfit called MAGA Energy declares that Fleming previously voted in favor of programs for carbon capture, a process that involves capturing carbon dioxide and other emissions before they enter the atmosphere and storing them underground.
While Fleming has railed against such projects, MAGA Energy’s narrator accuses him of “lying about his record” and betraying Trump by “scheming with environmentalists who want to destroy oil and gas.”
Bridges writes that there’s no word yet on who is behind this group or which candidate it supports. Fleming, though, is accusing Landry of being connected to MAGA Energy.
The governor posted a video last month where he declared that Fleming was “flip-flopping” after voting for carbon capture projects. Landry, though, tells Bridges that he has no ties to the anti-Fleming outfit.
Cassidy, for his part, is continuing to focus his attacks on Letlow. The senator debuted a new commercial this week where the narrator opens, “In Congress, liberal Julia Letlow got rich trading stocks while Bill Cassidy stopped Biden’s war on energy.”
This is far from the first pro-Cassidy spot that Louisiana viewers have been treated to. AdImpact reported Monday that the senator and his allies have spent or reserved over $15 million on ads, compared to over $4 million for Letlow’s side. Fleming, by contrast, has deployed less than $500,000.
A trio of polls conducted last month found none of the candidates anywhere close to the majority of the vote they’d need to avert a June 27 runoff. There was no consensus, however, about which two Republicans would advance to the second round.
Governors
VT-Gov
Aly Richards, who chairs the board of the University of Vermont Medical Center, announced Monday that she would seek the Democratic nomination to challenge Republican Gov. Phil Scott.
Richards, who is the former CEO of the influential childcare advocacy organization Let’s Grow Kids, joins economist Amanda Janoo in the Aug. 11 primary.
Scott has yet to announce if he’ll seek a sixth two-year term leading Vermont, though the news site Seven Days says he’s “widely considered to be running.” The governor likely won’t announce one way or the other until the legislature wraps up its current session, which will probably be sometime next month: The state’s candidate filing deadline is May 28.
Scott is one of the few elected officials anywhere in the country who has continued to secure significant cross-party support in an era when ticket-splitting is on the line: The incumbent claimed his most recent term in a 73-22 landslide even as Kamala Harris was carrying the state 64-32.
Richards, though, believes that Scott, who was first elected in 2016, has overstayed his welcome. She told the crowd at her announcement rally, “When people can’t afford to live here, you know we’ve got a problem, OK? It’s not working. It’s time for a new approach.”
House
CA-48
Democratic Majority for Israel PAC has launched a negative TV ad against Navy Reserve officer Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is one of several Democrats competing in the June 2 top-two primary for California’s open 48th District.
The commercial accuses Campa-Najjar, who unsuccessfully ran for Congress in 2018 and 2020, of walking back his past anti-abortion stances. It also plays a clip from his 2020 campaign where Campa-Najjar says, “I ran for Congress to work with Trump.”
The spot does not touch on Israel or any other related topics. San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert, whom DMFI supports, is also not mentioned in this commercial.
Campa-Najjar’s team responded to the offensive by telling Politico, “DMFI will say or do anything to keep the son of a Palestinian immigrant out of Congress, including lying about his support for abortion rights when they know Ammar is campaigning on codifying Roe V. Wade.”
Campa-Najjar and von Wilpert are both campaigning to replace Republican Rep. Darrell Issa, who abruptly ended his reelection campaign last month. The Democratic side also features businessman Brandon Riker, school board member Abel Chavez, Vista City Council member Corinna Contreras, and four other candidates who haven’t gained much traction.
Issa is supporting San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond, who had been running in a neighboring district until the congressman announced his retirement. One little-known Republican and a non-aligned candidate round out the field.
The 48th District was reliably red turf when Issa won his final term in 2024, but the map that statewide voters approved last year transformed it into a constituency Kamala Harris would have carried 50-47. The new-look 48th now includes Palm Springs and other communities of the Inland Empire, as well as Escondido, San Marcos, and Vista in northern San Diego County.
FL-27
Businessman Richard Lamondin said Tuesday that he was ending his campaign against Republican Rep. Maria Elvira Salazar and would instead seek the Democratic nomination to oppose GOP state Sen. Alexis Calatayud.
Lamondin’s departure leaves three noteworthy Democrats running in the Aug. 18 primary for Florida’s 27th Congressional District: attorney Robin Peguero, retired journalist Eliott Rodriguez, and Lev Parnas, a former fixer for Rudy Giuliani who reinvented himself as a critic of Donald Trump.
MA-04
Former Wall Street regulator Ihssane Leckey ended her primary campaign against Democratic Rep. Jake Auchincloss on Tuesday in Massachusetts’ 4th District.
Leckey was the only notable candidate opposing Auchincloss for renomination in this reliably blue constituency, though potential opponents still have until May 5 to file paperwork.
Poll Pile
ME-Sen (D): Maine People’s Resource Center (pro-Platner):
Graham Platner: 61, Janet Mills: 28. (Oct.: 41-39 Platner.)
ME-Sen: Maine People’s Resource Center:
Platner (D): 48, Susan Collins (R-inc): 39. (Oct.: 45-41 Platner.)
Collins (R-inc): 45, Mills (D): 42. (Oct.: 46-42 Collins.)
CA-Gov (top-two primary): Kreate Strategies:
Steve Hilton (R): 19, Tom Steyer (D): 13, Eric Swalwell (D): 13, Chad Bianco (R): 10, Katie Porter (D): 8, other candidates 4% or less, undecided: 20.
Kreate says this poll “was not sponsored by any campaign or outside organization.”
CA-Gov (top-two primary): Evitarus for the California Democratic Party:
Hilton (R): 14, Bianco (R): 14, Swalwell (D): 12, Steyer (D): 11, Porter (D): 7, other candidates 4% or less, undecided: 24.
Late March: Hilton: 16, Bianco: 14, Swalwell: 10, Steyer: 10, Porter: 10.
Both the Kreate and Evitarus polls were completed before Donald Trump endorsed Hilton.
UT-02 (R): The Tarrance Group for Blake Moore:
Blake Moore (inc): 61, Karianne Lisonbee: 14, Colton Hatch: 14.
I think Dems flipping the Waukesha Mayor's race also merits mention.
two special elex last night of interest to climate folk in particular.
Port Washington, in the northern Milwaukee suburbs, held a referendum that was effectively a referendum on a proposed data canter. The YES (anti-data center) side won, 66-34, bigger margin than Justice Taylor, which means that the city now has to ask for voter approval before approving data centers. Expect a lot of copycat referenda where possible.
And Arizona's Salt River Project board race went national, with Turning Point on one side and climate folk on the other. Voting here is tied to how much land you own. Long lines last night, results at some point today. SRP is a mini-public utility commission.