Chris Taylor Wins Wisconsin Supreme Court Seat, Expanding Liberal Majority

Chris Taylor claimed a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court on Tuesday, delivering liberals a 5-2 supermajority on the state's highest court and handing Democrats their fourth consecutive victory in state Supreme Court elections dating back to 2020.

Taylor, a state appeals court judge and former Democratic state legislator, secured a 10-year term on the court over conservative Maria Lazar, an appeals court judge who had Republican backing. Liberals are now guaranteed to hold a majority on the court until at least 2030. Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative, had announced her retirement, opening the seat Taylor now fills.

Taylor brought unusual ideological texture to her campaign biography. Before joining the bench, she served as Policy/Political Director for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin, and she made abortion rights the centerpiece of her race against Lazar. In July 2025, the court's existing 4-3 liberal majority ruled that Wisconsin's 176-year-old 1849 abortion law had been superseded by decades of subsequent state regulation, effectively keeping abortion legal in Wisconsin. Taylor's win cements the majority that issued that ruling.

The court's expanded liberal bench now sits directly in the path of two major redistricting lawsuits with national stakes. Republicans hold six of Wisconsin's eight congressional districts, and Democratic-aligned groups have filed competing legal challenges to those maps. A three-judge panel dismissed the first lawsuit on March 31, a decision that can be appealed to the Wisconsin Supreme Court, though it is unclear whether the court could rule in time to affect the November midterms. A second redistricting lawsuit is not slated for trial until April 2027.

Beyond the maps, the court's docket carries consequences for labor and voting rights. A lawsuit targeting Act 10, the 2011 state law that limited public-sector collective bargaining, is expected to reach the state Supreme Court after a Dane County circuit court ruled it unconstitutional in 2024. A separate lawsuit against Madison election officials alleges that misplaced ballots in the 2024 presidential election disenfranchised voters, raising questions about whether officials can be held liable for failing to count votes.

In her victory speech, Taylor framed the result as a mandate: "Once again, Wisconsin showed the entire nation that we believe that the people should be at the center of government and the priority of our judiciary, not the billionaires, not the most powerful and privileged, but the people."

Democrats are looking to tighten their control of the court just months before a November election in which they seek to keep the governor's office and flip the state Legislature, where Republicans have held the majority since 2011. With a 5-2 liberal court now locked in through the end of the decade, Wisconsin's judiciary stands as one of the most durable progressive institutions in any national battleground state, positioned to influence electoral maps and rights disputes well into the 2028 presidential cycle.