Menominee County shifts 17.9 points right in Wisconsin Supreme Court race

Menominee County swung sharply right in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race, even as the county had backed Kamala Harris by 61.7 points in the 2024 presidential election. Chris Taylor carried the county by 43.8 points, a 17.9-point shift that stood out in Wisconsin’s least populous county and in a place where election margins can reveal more about turnout than party labels.

That matters here because Menominee County is not just small. It had 4,255 residents in the 2020 census, is majority Native, and shares coterminous boundaries with the Menominee Indian Reservation except for Middle Village. The county seat is Keshena, about 45 miles northwest of Green Bay, and the county borders Langlade, Oconto and Shawano counties. The Menominee Indian Tribe says its history in the region dates back 10,000 years, and the county itself was created in 1959 after federal termination of the tribe before the lands reverted to reservation status in 1975.

Taylor’s statewide victory, called by the Associated Press at 8:36 p.m. on April 7, expanded the Wisconsin Supreme Court’s liberal majority to 5-2. Wisconsin Public Radio reported that Taylor outspent Maria Lazar by 6-to-1 and still won by 20 percentage points statewide, even as fundraising, early voting and turnout were all lower than in recent Supreme Court races. That lower-intensity environment helps explain why analysts are looking closely at counties like Menominee for clues about who showed up and who stayed home.

The race also carried stakes well beyond a single seat. The court has recently ruled on abortion rights and Republican-drawn legislative maps, and it is expected to weigh voting rights and labor cases next. Taylor framed her victory in Madison as a defense of democratic accountability, telling supporters that “the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary.”

For Menominee County, the result is a reminder that even a deep-blue presidential performance can soften in a lower-turnout spring election. Whether that 17.9-point move was a one-night anomaly or an early warning sign will matter not just to court watchers, but to anyone tracking how power shifts in Wisconsin’s smallest county.