Waukesha, the county seat of Waukesha County, Wisconsin. It is part of the Milwaukee metropolitan area. (Photo by Denis Tangney Jr./Getty Images)
The headlines following Wisconsin’s April 2026 spring election told a story of Democratic triumph: Chris Taylor expanded the liberal majority on the State Supreme Court, and in a stunning upset, the candidate supported by Democrats, Alicia Halvensleben, defeated Republican state Rep. Scott Allen to win the nominally nonpartisan mayoral race in the city of Waukesha, in the heart of a Republican-leaning area that has been key to past Wisconsin GOP victories.
But further down the ballot, a quieter, more granular political battle reached a turning point. In school board races across the county, a multi-year, well-funded right wing project to seize control of school policymaking came to a grinding halt due to years of community-led organizing.
Since 2021, the Republican Party of Waukesha County’s WISRED initiative has systematically targeted down-ballot races as part of a precinct-focused strategy aimed to energize conservative voters in low-turnout elections. This relied mostly on manufacturing outrage around “culture war” topics in public education and resulted in partisan majorities installed on school boards across the county.
This cycle, however, marked a dramatic reversal of fortune for right-wing groups. So-called “conservative” candidates backed by WISRED, Moms for Liberty, and The 1776 Project PAC won around 60% of their races in this Republican stronghold, hardly the dominant track record of previous cycles.
This shift is not merely the result of a tarnished MAGA brand. It is the direct outcome of parents, students and activists working at the local level to reclaim their school boards for their communities.
There are four districts that stood out this election cycle:
Menomonee Falls: In perhaps the most decisive result, the school board flipped from partisan control back to a nonpartisan, community-focused majority. All three candidates backed by WisRed, Moms for Liberty and the 1776 Project were defeated in their bids.
Elmbrook: Considered one of the last holdouts against the partisan takeover, the Elmbrook School District successfully defended its nonpartisan board. Incumbent Sam Hughes lost his race despite receiving over $30,000 in in-kind support from conservative PACs, a huge blowout for the WISRED initiative.
Waukesha: In the county’s largest district, the Waukesha GOP’s slate was largely defeated. While partisan-backed incumbent Bette Koenig retained her seat, the other two candidates on the WISRED ticket lost. This race also involved a new group, Forward Wisconsin, a PAC exclusively funded by former Lt. Governor Rebecca Kleefisch, that backed those same GOP-supported candidates. The district will now see two community-backed members, Diane Voit and Mitch Gallagher, on the board, up from one.
Hartland: Even in the very heart of Republican Waukesha County, the trend held. In the Hartland-Lakeside School District, the WisRed-backed challenger, who had appeared at campaign events with the chair of the Republican Party of Waukesha County, failed. Incumbent Morgan Henning, the non-partisan candidate, successfully retained her seat.
Kettle Moraine: One school board candidate, Jay Crouse, stood out for receiving endorsements from each of WISRED, Moms for Liberty, The Heartland Post, Blue Sky Waukesha, the Waukesha Dems, and KM Alliance. Unsurprisingly, Crouse won his race.
After several election cycles, communities are beginning to see and react to the negative consequences of partisan-controlled school boards. The 2026 results show that there is a path for communities to flip the script on the MAGA takeover of public education.
Correction: An earlier version of this piece incorrectly identified Sam Hughes as a challenger instead of an incumbent on the Elmbrook school board.
During last week’s election, voters across Wisconsin cast ballots for judges, school boards, county boards, mayors and city alders. And from the northwest to the southeast, some people voted with one big issue on their minds: data centers.
Chris Taylor at her victory party after winning a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. (Photo by Ruth Conniff/Wisconsin Examiner)
The hotel ballroom in downtown Madison was packed with cheering supporters as Chris Taylor gave her victory speech Tuesday night after her huge, 20-point win over her conservative opponent Maria Lazar, cementing a 5-2 liberal majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. The four other liberal women on the Court high-fived Taylor as she took the stage. The deliriously joyful crowd repeatedly interrupted Taylor’s remarks with shouting and applause, including to chant the name of her dog when she mentioned it during a lengthy list of thank-yous: “Ollie! Ollie!”
Democrats are so hungry for success they are ready to throw their arms around any champion, including canines — yellow, blue, whatever.
Eager to catch that wave of enthusiasm, many of the seven gubernatorial hopefuls in the Democratic primary field hovered around the ballroom. After the results were tabulated, party operatives began circulating statistics showing Taylor’s big margins of victory in Republican-leaning counties, using those results to forecast a crushing blue wave in November. Democratic Party Chair Devin Remiker called Taylor’s win “an indictment of Trump and Tom Tiffany,” the GOP candidate for governor.
Without question, Taylor’s 60-40 percentage point drubbing of Lazar is good news for Democrats, who poured money and organizing energy into the nominally nonpartisan race. And it’s a serious loss for Republicans, who backed Lazar, an anti-abortion election skeptic. But Taylor’s lopsided victory does not mean that Wisconsin has turned, overnight, from a 50-50 purple state that narrowly elected both Presidents Joe Biden and Donald Trump into a liberal stronghold where Democrats can expect to run the table in November.
The reality is that Republicans gave up. After repeated, double-digit losses in the last three Supreme Court elections in a row, including the 2025 record-breaking $100 million race — when Elon Musk proved that all the money in the world and even outright bribery couldn’t convince Wisconsin voters to embrace the Republican-backed candidate Brad Schimel — they threw in the towel. This year, the state Republican party gave $64,000 to Lazar, compared to the $775,000 the Democratic party gave to Taylor. Republican donors also held onto their wallets. Final fundraising reports ahead of the election showed Taylor had raised more than $2 million while Lazar reported about $472,000.
The Wisconsin GOP has concluded that spring judicial elections are a lousy bet, especially in the Trump era. Democratic voters are energized for these races, while Republican voters, especially the MAGA base, turn out in low numbers. The voters who care about April judicial races are disproportionately college educated liberals, as political analyst Craig Gilbert explains.
All of these are reasons to take Democratic optimism pegged to Tuesday’s results with a grain of salt. After all, liberal Justices Jill Karofsky and Janet Protasiewicz posted big wins in the Wisconsin Supreme Court elections of 2020 and 2023, followed by Trump’s 2024 Wisconsin victory.
Still, Taylor’s 20-point triumph matters. For one thing, the failure of the Republicans to put up much of a fight for Lazar comes at the same time that the GOP leaders of both chambers of the Legislature have announced they are calling it quits, along with several key members of those bodies who would face tough reelection battles now that the state’s voting maps are no longer rigged in their favor. The whole Wisconsin Republican Party seems to be in retreat.
The only thing that got legislative Republicans off the couch recently was the UW Regents’ decision to fire their ally, University of Wisconsin President Jay Rothman. They are so outraged they’re planning to hold long-delayed confirmation hearings this week just to fire the regents. Nothing motivates Wisconsin Republicans like spite, and the defense of their own diminishing power.
After steadfastly refusing to confirm most of Gov. Tony Evers’ appointees during his entire two terms in office, they are coming back into special session, not to strike a deal to fund schools or lower property taxes or address any of the other issues that matter to voters they didn’t get around to by the end of the session, but to take revenge on the regents and showcase their own pettiness. It’s their last power grab before they lose their gerrymandered power altogether. The regents were apparently willing to take the risk to get rid of Rothman, who is no longer needed to make nice with a soon-to-depart Republican majority.
Taylor’s huge win on Tuesday bolsters the growing sense among Wisconsinites that the Republicans are about to lose more than one judicial race. By not fighting harder, the Republicans showed their own lack of confidence. And who can blame them? As Taylor’s victory party kicked off, the news was all about whether Trump would make good on his pledge to annihilate an entire civilization in Iran — a threat so unhinged even Sen. Ron Johnson felt compelled to renounce it.
Trump’s approval numbers are in the toilet. He is, as investigative reporter Ken Kippenstein points out on Substack, the first president in U.S. history to get no public approval bump at all for going to war. Members of Congress and even some former Trump supporters are openly discussing the need to invoke the 25th Amendment to put the Republican Party’s national leader in a straitjacket.
Add to that the cost of gas, groceries, and the deliberate destruction of affordable health care and you have a recipe for a massive midterm rebellion. The Wisconsin Supreme Court race is part of that picture, even if it’s a lopsided measure of Democratic energy and Republican depression.
Plus, the new, now locked-in majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court will be a bulwark against GOP efforts to limit voting rights and interfere with fair elections.
All in all, it’s pretty terrible news for Republicans. That barking dog that’s chasing them might have a nasty bite.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers on Wednesday signed a bill bringing Wisconsin in line with a federal law seeking to prevent the kind of post-election chaos that President Donald Trump and his allies sowed after the 2020 election.
The Democrat also vetoed a Republican-authored bill that would have required the state election commission to hear administrative complaints against itself alleging violations of the federal Help America Vote Act, in line with a U.S. Justice Department demand for the state. That vetoed bill also would have required the state’s Legislative Audit Bureau to conduct audits for potential noncitizen voters.
The bill Evers signed updates Wisconsin’s deadlines for certifying presidential election results and casting electoral votes to match federal timelines set by Congress in 2022, after President Donald Trump claimed to have won the 2020 election and hundreds of individuals stormed the U.S. Capitol to prevent certification of President Joe Biden’s victory.
The mismatch led to a lawsuit in the 2024 presidential election, when the state’s Republican electors were uncertain which day to cast their Electoral College votes because state and federal law set the dates one day apart. The new law resolves that discrepancy.
The measure passed the Senate last session but stalled in the Assembly. With its passage, Wisconsin is among more than 20 states to update their laws to align with the Electoral Count Reform Act.
Vetoed bill would have imposed U.S. DOJ demand
The HAVA bill that Evers vetoed followed a U.S. Justice Department letter sent to the Wisconsin Elections Commission last year. It claimed the WEC was violating the law by declining to hear complaints filed against it.
Under HAVA, a 2002 law that overhauled voter registration and election administration, any state receiving federal election funding must also establish an administrative process for complaints about alleged violations of the law. If a violation is found, the state must provide a remedy; if not, it can dismiss the complaint.
In recent years, however, the WEC has dismissed HAVA complaints related to its own actions, citing a Wisconsin Supreme Court opinion saying it would be “nonsensical” for the agency to adjudicate a complaint against itself.
For example, the commission dismissed a complaint against the agency filed by a Democratic voter seeking to bar Trump from the ballot and has repeatedly dismissed complaints filed by election conspiracy theorist Peter Bernegger that allege various kinds of election mismanagement.
“If a person has a complaint about the legality of the conduct of the commission, that person should file suit in court,” Evers said in his veto message Wednesday.
The vetoed bill also would have required the state to undertake audits of its voter registration list to identify potential noncitizen voters.
Evers said he objected to the “additional burden that could be placed on citizens to provide documentary proof of citizenship after they have already been lawfully registered to vote.”
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Scott Walker on the Wisconsin Legislature Elections in 2026 Scott Walker on the Republican Party’s outlook in the November 2026 midterm elections. Transcript Steven Potter: What are your thoughts on […]
While they share many of the same policy goals — expanding Medicaid, developing a public health insurance option and increasing rural access to health care — the seven contenders at the forum differed on approach.
Liberal Justice-elect Chris Taylor's dominant victory continued two trends. Liberals can't seem to lose statewide judicial races. And the pendulum keeps swinging in their direction.
Voting booths set up at Madison, Wisconsin’s Hawthorne Library. Today is Election Day. (Photo by Henry Redman/Wisconsin Examiner)
Wisconsin’s non-partisan spring elections are Tuesday. The race for an open seat on the state Supreme Court between Court of Appeals Judges Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor is at the top of the ticket, but Wisconsin voters will also decide a handful of races for circuit court seats, hundreds of school board races, school referendum questions and other local contests.
Polls open on Tuesday at 7 a.m. and remain open until 8 p.m. Voters who are still in line when polls close should remain in line and will still be able to cast their ballots. Absententee ballots that have not yet been returned need to be received by local election officials by the time polls close. It’s too late to drop a ballot in the mail, but voters can bring their absentee ballots to their designated polling place, their municipal clerk’s office or, in communities that use them, to a municipal absentee ballot drop box. Details on how and where to vote as well as same-day voter registration at the polls can be found at MyVote.WI.gov.
As of Monday, 424,651 absentee ballots had been requested and 324,396 ballots had been returned, according to Wisconsin Elections Commission data. The absentee numbers show a steep drop from last year’s spring election when the state Supreme Court race drew massive national attention with the ideological balance of the Court at stake. Last year, 750,240 absentee ballots were requested and 693,981 were returned.
Wisconsin voters head to the polls amid a flurry of national headlines about efforts from President Donald Trump and Republicans to change the rules around voter registration and absentee ballot eligibility.
Trump signed an executive order last week that seeks to severely limit access to voting by mail. He is also pushing for congressional Republicans to pass the SAVE Act, a bill that would change the rules guiding how people register to vote in an effort to make it harder for non-citizens to vote. Non-citizen voting has become a major focus for Republican election skeptics, however there is no evidence non-citizen voting happens in statistically significant numbers.
Trump’s executive order curtailing mail-in ballots is being challenged in court and the SAVE Act has not yet been signed into law. At an online news conference Monday, WEC Administrator Meagan Wolfe said there have been zero changes to federal law that will affect Wisconsinites trying to cast a ballot Tuesday.
“As it pertains to the April 7, 2026 election, there are no changes,” she said. “Any federal bills that are being proposed or other measures that might be proposed at the federal level — none of those are in place. And so when voters head to the polls on April 7, they should know that nothing has changed. The same processes that you’ve used to vote in the last number of years are still in place. There have been no changes. So the photo ID requirements remain unchanged. The process where you state your name and address and you show your ID and you’re given a ballot at the polls and you sign the poll book, all of those things are still in place.”
On Monday, the Republican Party of Wisconsin announced it had filed a complaint with WEC against the city of Green Bay after 152 people were mistakenly sent two absentee ballots. Green Bay City Clerk Celestine Jeffries said a “system glitch” caused the error.
Since 2020, the Wisconsin Republican Party has regularly encouraged conspiracy theories about the state’s election systems. In a statement, party chair Brian Schimming called for WEC to investigate and make sure people aren’t able to cast two votes.
“Wisconsin law is clear: one voter, one ballot,” said Schimming, who was involved in the effort to cast false Electoral College ballots on behalf of Trump after the 2020 election. “This reckless failure by the Green Bay Clerk has created serious risks of double voting and fraud. The Elections Commission must immediately investigate and order a concrete plan to secure Tuesday’s election.”
Wolfe said at the news conference that state law prevents her from commenting on the specifics of any complaints made to WEC, but that Wisconsin’s system has a “very, very established process” for how clerks handle duplicate ballots.
The system for logging returned ballots would never allow the same voter to return two ballots, Wolfe said.
“If two ballots come back, one of them is rejected, because only one ballot can be checked in and actually sent to be tabulated per voter,” she said. “And all that’s going to happen as part of a public process. So the actual rejection and then sending one of the ballots tabulated, all that’s going to occur at the polling place or where ballots are tabulated in that jurisdiction, and observers and the public will be made aware of exactly what’s happening and why one ballot’s being rejected and one’s being sent on to be counted. And so we always, in this situation, encourage our clerks to be very transparent in exactly how these are handled and the many, many safeguards that are in place to ensure that only one ballot can be counted.”
Wisconsin voters are deciding the fate of another state Supreme Court race on Tuesday, while also weighing in on a plethora of local races and referenda.
The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., on Thursday, April 18, 2024. (Photo by Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom)
WASHINGTON — Congress will look considerably different next year, after dozens of its members move on to other political offices or retire, a number that’s likely to grow as some of those hoping to stay lose their reelection bids.
A turnover of at least 13% will be the highest in more than three decades, bringing in a wave of new lawmakers, who will be looked to as a source of solutions for some of the country’s biggest problems.
But the loss of institutional knowledge and negotiating expertise held by committee chairmen and seasoned lawmakers will not be easily replaced.
Experts interviewed by States Newsroom said a surge of freshmen could lead to a further concentration of power in congressional leaders and heighten the influence of lobbyists, though they added there are benefits as well.
“Serving in Congress is like any other job. It takes you some time to figure out how to be good at it,” said Molly Reynolds, vice president and director of Governance Studies at the Brookings Institution. “Even members who come in with state legislative experience, they will know some things about legislating, but they won’t know all the things about Congress.”
New lawmakers don’t often understand the more complicated procedures and practices, like budget reconciliation, which Republicans used last year to enact their “big, beautiful” law.
“We ran the reconciliation process last year with lots of members who had never experienced a reconciliation bill before,” Reynolds said. “And one consequence of this kind of lack of experience is that that can stand to empower party leaders even more.”
But, she added, there can be value in “having younger members, who have a different time horizon for thinking about some of the problems facing the country.”
Generational change ahead
So far 57 House lawmakers, 21 Democrats and 36 Republicans, have opted to run for another political position or retire. In the Senate, four Democrats and seven Republicans are choosing to leave for one reason or another, according to datacompiled by Ballotpedia.
Jonathan K. Hanson, lecturer in public policy at the University of Michigan, said it can take a while for newer members to learn the policy landscape well enough to understand when to listen to outside influence and when not to.
“A person doesn’t walk into Congress knowing how things work,” he said. “And the more that you have people who are fresh, kind of green, don’t know how to navigate the institution, the more power that special interests, lobbyists, so forth might have to influence the political process.”
Hanson also said that “some generational change is a good thing.”
Longing to be the chief executive
North Dakota Republican Sen. John Hoeven said many of his colleagues are opting to run for governor, which he believes is a superior role to the one he holds now.
“I was governor for 10 years before I came here. It’s the best job you can have. It’s a better job than Senate,” Hoeven said. “I mean, it’s an honor to serve in the Senate, for sure. But you just can’t find a better job than being governor. So that’s totally understandable.”
More than a dozen lawmakers are running for governor, including Alabama Republican Sen. Tommy Tuberville, Colorado Democratic Sen. Michael Bennet, Florida Republican Rep. Byron Donalds, Minnesota Democratic Sen. Amy Klobuchar and Tennessee Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn.
Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said being a member of Congress can be difficult, leading some lawmakers to head for the exits and other opportunities.
“This is not an easy job and people, you know, decide that they’ve had a good chapter and want to do something else,” Kaine said. “I can understand why people might make that call.”
South Dakota Republican Rep. Dusty Johnson, who is campaigning to be governor of his home state, said that every two years, the institution changes when more experienced members leave and newer ones are voted into Congress.
“Every cycle, we always have plenty of retirements, certainly enough retirements to change the nature of the body,” Johnson said. “The bigger factor is, who replaces those who have left? And of course, we’re not going to know that until after the primaries and generals are wrapped up.”
Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters, who is set to leave at the end of this year, said the impact of retirements will depend on which candidates Americans elect during November’s midterm elections.
“If you have people who are getting elected who are practical, common-sense problem solvers, that’ll be good,” Peters said. “If people are hyper-partisan, either left or right, that’s not going to be good.”
Oklahoma Republican Rep. Tom Cole said the retirements from members of his own party could have an impact on the elections.
“Obviously, we’re losing some very good members. And it’s easier, as a rule, to defend an incumbent than it is to win an open seat, particularly in a challenging year,” Cole said. “But look, these things run in cycles. You just have to work your way through it.”
Travel, long hours, little satisfaction
Hanson from the University of Michigan said more Republicans have decided to retire or seek another office because their party is likely to lose at least one chamber of Congress.
“They’re expecting to lose control of the House of Representatives, and it’s not very enticing for them to stay in the fight under those circumstances,” he said.
The mounting challenges that come with being a member of Congress are part of the reason some lawmakers are planning to step aside from their current roles, Hanson said.
“I do think that the job, while seeming glamorous from the outside, is not that glamorous from the inside,” he said. “There’s lots of travel. Even when you go home, you’re traveling around your district. It’s hard on family life. The hours can be very long in those late-night voting sessions.
“And then that would be one thing if what you’re getting out of it is a positive sense of contributing to the broader good, to, you know, the idea of public service.”
But, Hanson added, there aren’t that many opportunities these days for lawmakers to pass legislation they believe is meaningful.
“So I think it’s fair to say that while there are certain people who are attracted to being in the thick of this kind of scene, a lot of people find that it’s just not a very satisfying occupation,” he said.
Zachary Peskowitz, a political science professor at Emory University in Georgia, said there are both pros and cons to more than 65 lawmakers leaving Congress at one time.
“On the one hand, there are a lot of members who have a lot of seniority and have served for a long time and a lot of expertise but are in their 70s and 80s in some cases,” he said. “And there have been concerns about how engaged some of them are.”
Younger members, Peskowitz said, may “approach the job with more energy than you might get from somebody who’s been in Congress for decades.” Newer lawmakers will also likely come with different viewpoints and priorities, he said.
A courtroom and a judge's gavel. (Getty Images creative)
While the Wisconsin Supreme Court race draws most of the headlines — and, even this year with less national attention, most of the money — elections for six county circuit court seats across the state are contested.
The Supreme Court weighs in on the state’s most hot button issues, but during its 2024-25 term issued only 22 decisions. The state’s circuit courts, on the other hand, are responsible for thousands of cases ranging from criminal prosecutions to civil lawsuits and family law disputes.
More than 250 judges across the state are elected to six-year terms. The spring elections are Wisconsin voters’ only real chance at changing their local judges, yet the races often go uncontested. This year, 25 seats on the circuit court bench are up for election, and only six of those races are contested.
Dane County
In Dane County’s first contested circuit court election since 2018, incumbent Ben Jones is up against immigration attorney Huma Ahsan. Jones was appointed to the court last year to fill the seat vacated by Susan Crawford’s election to the state Supreme Court.
Before joining the bench, Jones spent almost a decade working as an attorney at the Department of Public Instruction. Jones told the Capital Times that he applied for his appointment because of his dedication to public service.
“I bring … all of that experience, all of that training to me on the bench every day,” he said. “Not just experience with the practice of law, but the experience as a public servant and the mentality of serving the public, as opposed to my own ego.”
Ahsan works in private practice as an immigration attorney. Prior to starting her practice, she was a legislative attorney for the Ho-Chunk Nation and the deputy director of the Great Lakes Indigenous Law Center at the University of Wisconsin Law School.
She told the Cap Times she’s running to help make Dane County welcoming for everyone.
“That’s why I’m running, is to make sure that this community stays welcoming, open to all of us,” Ahsan, the daughter of immigrants, said. “Because it is a haven for all of us that have ever experienced something different.”
Jones has raised $126,000 for his campaign, which includes $52,000 of his own money. He’s also received $10,000 from Crawford, according to campaign finance reports filed with the Wisconsin Ethics Commission. He’s spent the largest portions of his campaign funds on mailings and consultant services.
Ahsan has raised $93,000, nearly $19,000 of which came from her personally. She’s spent $26,000 of her funds on digital advertising.
Florence and Forest counties
Voters in Florence and Forest counties will be choosing someone to replace the retiring Judge Leon Stenz on their shared circuit court bench. Stenz has held the seat since 2008.
The candidates in the race are Robert A. Kennedy Jr. and Alex Seifert.
Kennedy previously served one term as the Florence County District Attorney and one term on the Florence-Forest circuit court. He ran unsuccessfully against Stenz in 2014.
Seifert is the Forest County district attorney. He was appointed to the role by Gov. Tony Evers in April 2024 before being elected to a full term in the 2024 November election. He ran as an independent in his one partisan race.
Prior to his appointment to the DA’s office, Seifert worked in the Forest County Corporation Counsel’s office and for the Wisconsin State Public Defender. He also previously ran for and lost a race to be the Langlade County district attorney.
Seifert hasn’t raised any money for the race while Kennedy has contributed $48,000 of his own money to the race — spending that largely on newspaper and radio ads and yard signs.
Marathon County
In Marathon County, Michael Hughes and Douglas Bauman are running to succeed Judge LaMont Jacobson.
Hughes works in private practice in Wausau and serves as the president of the Marathon County Bar Association. Bauman is a Marathon County court commissioner and staff attorney at the circuit court.
“Becoming a judge is the best way to continue and expand my service to the community,” he said. “It would also make my service more direct and comprehensive. In the position I hold now, I work on pieces of particular cases, but the ultimate decider is a judge. I want to become a judge in order to cut out the middleman. Becoming a judge would allow me to take the experience I’ve gained during my 28-year legal career, particularly the last 24 years at the circuit court, and apply it directly to the legal disputes that come before the court. It would also allow me to ensure that litigants have the opportunity to feel heard, and that they are treated with compassion and respect.”
Hughes has touted endorsements he’s received from local officials on both sides of the political aisle, saying his broad experience as a private attorney has prepared him to work as a judge.
“We must have a court system that is strong, fair, efficient, and which keeps our community safe,” he told WJI. “A key part of that system are judges. We need judges who are impartial and who will make decisions based on the law and the facts. We need judges who will treat everyone in the courtroom with respect. We need judges who are committed to serving with integrity.”
Bauman has raised $11,700, with $10,000 of that coming from his own money. He’s only spent $2,400 of those funds.
Hughes has raised $27,000 for his campaign, which includes $20,000 in his own money.
Washburn County
Washburn County District Attorney Aaron Marcoux is running to unseat incumbent Judge Angeline Winton-Roe.
Marcoux was appointed DA by Evers in 2019 before being reelected in 2020 and 2024. He previously worked as an assistant district attorney in the county and for the state public defender’s office.
Winton-Roe was appointed to her seat by Evers in 2019 before being elected to a full term in 2020. She was the county’s elected DA from 2017 until her appointment to the bench.
Marcoux told WJI that his experience as both a prosecutor and public defender help him understand what is needed from a circuit court judge.
“I also believe strongly that the court belongs to the people it serves, not the individual sitting on the bench,” he said. “A judge’s role is not about power or position, but about responsibility. The judge must apply the law fairly, listen carefully, and treat every person who enters the courtroom with dignity and respect.”
Winton-Roe said on the questionnaire that she hopes her court is a place where the people of Washburn County don’t get overlooked.
“A community court must also be a place where people feel welcome, even during some of the most difficult moments in their lives,” she said. “Many who come before the court are facing uncertainty, conflict, or hardship. Some arrive feeling overwhelmed, overlooked, or even forgotten. It is essential that the courtroom remain a place where every person, regardless of their circumstances, knows they will be treated fairly and respectfully, and that their voice is heard.”
Marcoux has raised about $13,000 for his campaign, with nearly all of it coming from his own money. Most of his funds have been spent on digital, newspaper and billboard advertising.
Winton-Roe has raised about $16,000, with $10,000 of that coming from her own money. Most of her money has been spent on digital advertising.
Washington County
In Washington County, incumbent Judge Gordon Leech is being challenged by Grant Scaife.
Leech was appointed to the court by Evers last July. He previously worked as a prosecutor in Fond du Lac County and as an attorney in the U.S. Marine Corps. Scaife is an assistant district attorney in the Washington County DA’s office.
Scaife is running explicitly as a conservative judge. He has touted his desire to “maintain a tough on crime approach” from the bench and has been endorsed by former Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Leech told WJI that he believes his 35 years of legal experience have prepared him for the role as a judge.
“I have been out in the community talking to people about my judicial philosophy, which is committed to keeping politics out of the courtroom, and everyone agrees that is important,” he said. “I don’t see the same commitment from others. So I believe I have something unique and critical to offer the citizens of the county: judicial independence from political parties and special interests that would like to influence the courts.”
Leech has raised about $10,000 for his campaign, contributing about $3,000 of his own money. He’s only spent about $1,100 of the funds.
Scaife has raised $60,000, $28,000 of which are personal funds. He’s also received a $2,000 donation from conservative Court of Appeals candidate Anthony LoCoco.
Wood County
Incumbent Judge Emily Nolan-Plutchak is being challenged for her seat on the Wood County Circuit Court by Elizabeth Gebert, an assistant district attorney for Monroe County and Marathon County.
Nolan-Plutchak was appointed to the seat by Evers last year and was previously an attorney manager for the state public defender’s office in Wisconsin Rapids. Gebert has worked in seven county DA offices across the state since 2008, she’s also married to current Wood County Judge Timothy Gebert.
Nolan-Plutchak told WJI her experience as a public defender has helped her to understand how much people can be assisted just by the judge slowing down the process to explain what’s going on, and the community’s need for judges to take a more proactive role in addressing problems such as addiction and mental illness.
“Knowing the difference this approach can make in an individual’s life inspires me to serve,” she said.
Gebert touted her experience as a prosecutor as preparing her to be a judge.
“I know that I have the ethical grounding necessary to issue decisions that reflect the values of the people of Wood County,” she told WJI.
Gebert has raised about $6,000 for her campaign, with about $2,400 coming from her personal funds. She’s spent the most money on newspaper ads and billboards.
Nolan-Plutchak has raised $27,000, with almost $14,000 coming from her own money. She’s also received $563 from the Democratic Party of Wisconsin. Her largest campaign expense has been $8,000 on brochures.
Municipal clerks from opposite ends of the state said they believe there isn’t enough time before this year’s midterm elections to successfully pull off the demands in Trump’s order, even if they could be done.
Baskets of ballots sit at a new ballot processing center in Thurston County, Washington, on Oct. 30, 2025. (Photo by Jake Goldstein-Street/Washington State Standard)
President Donald Trump’s executive order restricting mail ballots faced a fresh challenge on Friday, as a coalition of Democratic states filed a lawsuit seeking to block an order that experts say is an extraordinary attempt by the president to assert authority over elections.
More than 20 states — led by California, Massachusetts, Nevada and Washington — and the District of Columbia sued in federal court in Massachusetts. They argue the order violates the Constitution, which gives states the responsibility to run elections and allows Congress, not the president unilaterally, the power to override state regulations.
“Though the President may wish he had unlimited power to restrict voting rights, the Constitution gives states – not the White House – the authority to oversee elections,” Massachusetts Attorney General Andrea Joy Campbell, a Democrat, said in a statement.
The lawsuit is only the latest in a growing number of legal challenges to the order since Trump signed it on Tuesday.
The Democratic National Committee, top Democrats in Congress and other Democratic groups have sued, along with the American Civil Liberties Union, League of Women Voters, the League of United Latin American Citizens and other voting rights groups.
Friday’s state-led challenge marked at least the fifth lawsuit over the order.
“Neither the Constitution nor any act of Congress confers upon the President the authority to mandate sweeping changes to States’ electoral systems or procedures,” the complaint reads.
The Trump administration has said the order is necessary to ensure the security of elections and crack down on noncitizen voting, which studies have found is extremely rare. Trump acknowledged the order would likely face litigation when he signed it but called it “foolproof.”
“The President will do everything in his power to defend the safety and security of American elections and to ensure that only American citizens are voting in them,” White House spokesperson Abigail Jackson said in a statement on Wednesday.
List required
The order requires the Department of Homeland Security, with help from the Social Security Administration, to compile a list of voting-age U.S. citizens living in each state and then provide that information to state officials at least 60 days before each federal election.
The order does not tell states how to use the data, but it instructs the U.S. attorney general to prioritize investigations into state and local officials who issue federal ballots to ineligible voters.
The list of citizens will be drawn from naturalization and Social Security records, according to the order. It will also include data from SAVE, a powerful computer program maintained by Homeland Security that verifies citizenship by checking names against information in federal databases.
The order also directs the postmaster general to require every outbound mail ballot be in an envelope that includes a tracking barcode.
At least 90 days before a federal election, states must notify the U.S. Postal Service whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail. States would then have to submit to USPS a list of voters planning to vote by mail at least 60 days before the election.
“The expression ‘a solution in search of a problem’ came to mind, but this is sort of a quasi-solution in search of a hallucination,” said Pamela Smith, president and CEO of Verified Voting, an organization that promotes the responsible use of technology in elections.
Under the order, the Justice Department and other federal agencies would be directed to withhold federal funds from states and localities that don’t comply with federal laws. It doesn’t specify what federal funds would potentially be targeted or whether states could lose election-related dollars.
“The president’s illegal executive order creates a shadow voter eligibility list within the federal government and it threatens to coerce states into disenfranchising voters missing from those lists,” Nevada Attorney General Aaron Ford said at a news conference in Las Vegas.
States say they run elections, not feds
The coalition of states argues in the lawsuit that Trump’s order would require states to upend existing election administration procedures and spend significant time and resources “mitigating the harms” of its requirements and educating voters about the new rules.
The states joining the lawsuit include Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Illinois, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia, Washington and Wisconsin, in addition to the District of Columbia and Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Democrat.
Some Republican state officials have backed Trump’s efforts. Wyoming Secretary of State Chuck Gray in a statement voiced “complete and total” support for the order.
“I look forward to continuing to work with the Trump Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the United States Postal Inspection Service, and our county clerks on implementation of this executive order,” Gray said.
But the states say the order would require states to act contrary to their own voter roll procedures, systems and voter registration laws, the complaint argues. Arizona Attorney General Kris Mayes, a Democrat, said the Constitution is clear that states run elections.
“Not the President,” Mayes said. “And Arizona will not allow the federal government to seize control of our elections.”
Months before becoming one of the nearly 200 Madison voters in 2024 whose absentee ballots were never counted, Nathan Haimowitz did what he thought he was supposed to do.
As a journalist living in Spain and out of the habit of voting, the 26-year-old former poll worker said he wanted the 2024 presidential election to “be the thing that would spur me to vote more consistently.” To make sure everything was in order, he emailed Madison officials to confirm they had received his absentee ballot application. They told him they had, so he filled out his ballot, sent it in and assumed his vote would be counted.
“It was definitely a deterrence,” he said. “I didn’t know why my vote hadn’t been counted.”
Early signs suggest the error is already reshaping how many of the disenfranchised voters engage with elections — pushing some away from absentee voting and, in some cases, out of the electorate altogether. Interviews with affected voters also reveal a broader disconnect: Many say they are dissatisfied both with how the city handled the mistake and with the high-profile lawsuit filed in its wake to seek damages for the disenfranchised voters. The city, they say, has not been appropriately responsive, and the lawsuit does not reflect their values.
Until now, the public conversation has largely reflected the perspectives of the eight voters who joined the lawsuit as named plaintiffs. But others Votebeat spoke with described a different perspective — one that questions whether financial compensation is the right remedy at all.
Nathan Haimowitz (Courtesy of Nathan Haimowitz)
Mark Ediger, a recently retired chemistry professor at UW-Madison, for example, said he found the lawsuit “pretty bewildering,” adding that as a Madison taxpayer, it would be people like him footing the bill.
The 193 voters range from dozens of students who are only in Madison for a few years to some of their professors and other longtime city residents. Their responses to the error are just as varied.
Some, like Haimowitz, stopped voting entirely. Others, like Ediger, say the incident was a one-off mistake that hasn’t impacted their voting behavior. Notably, Ediger is the only voter among the disenfranchised group who has voted absentee in both of the two elections following the error, according to election data obtained by Votebeat.
“The incident has not diminished my trust in elections,” Ediger told Votebeat, adding that he’s satisfied the city has appropriately addressed its cause. “I don’t see how this should change my voting behavior moving forward.”
But other voters said their experience will change how they vote in future elections. “I’m definitely going to prioritize in-person voting,” Joanne Fairbotham, one of the disenfranchised voters, told Votebeat.
“There’s growing evidence that when someone tries to vote and they are prevented from doing so for one reason or another, it makes them less likely to vote in the future, and it can change their behavior,” said Kevin Morris, a senior research fellow and voting policy scholar with the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program. “You can lose a lot of trust very easily, and it can be very difficult to build that trust.”
All of the disenfranchised voters cast absentee ballots in the 2024 presidential election. But, among the 22 who cast ballots in the February 2025 primary for state superintendent of public instruction and city council, nearly all did so in person. Two months later, two-thirds of the 132 who voted in the Wisconsin Supreme Court race did so at the polls, a share similar to how the same group voted in previous April elections.
Disenfranchised voters question city follow-up
Shortly after learning that her ballot hadn’t been counted, Fairbotham — a 35-year-old medical coder who lives in Madison — wrote to City Clerk Maribeth Witzel-Behl, saying the error was “beyond devastating as an American who prides herself in voting in every election.”
“This is how people lose faith in their government that their rights will be protected,” she said in the letter, calling on Witzel-Behl to resign.
Fairbotham said she never received a response from Witzel-Behl, who has since resigned — or anyone else employed by the city.
“Not hearing a peep,” she said, is the most frustrating part. Fairbotham’s vote in the 2024 presidential election was the first time she cast an absentee ballot since the peak of the pandemic in 2020. She has only cast in-person votes since and said the incident still makes her angry.
Madison City Attorney Mike Haas disputed the characterization that the city didn’t communicate the seriousness of the error, pointing to a city and state investigation and a public apology from the mayor.
Still, some voters said the city’s outreach fell short after such a significant error. Haimowitz, for example, didn’t hear from the city when most of the voters did — a separate oversight by city officials meant overseas voters did not receive the same notice as those living locally. Until speaking with Votebeat, Haimowitz said, he didn’t know whether the mistake that kept his ballot from being counted was his or the city’s, nor what steps officials had taken to prevent it from happening again.
Election administration experts say direct, proactive communication can be critical in rebuilding trust. After a mistake like the one in Madison, jurisdictions should reach out to affected voters, review what went wrong and clearly explain how it will be prevented in the future, said Jennifer Morrell, CEO of The Elections Group and a former Colorado election administrator.
The city has completed the first two steps, Morrell said, but it did not fully follow through on the third.
After sending an initial notice telling voters they could reach out with questions, the city held no further public hearings, said Haas, a longtime election lawyer and former administrator of the Wisconsin Elections Commission. Few of the disenfranchised voters followed up, he added.
Some disenfranchised voters find lawsuit bewildering
The divide among disenfranchised voters extends to the lawsuit filed in the aftermath of the error.
In March 2025, the liberal group Law Forward filed a claim seeking $34 million from the city and Dane County over the error, later turning it into a lawsuit. In February, a circuit court judge ruled that the city could be held liable for monetary damages.
A small group of affected voters has joined the case, arguing it’s one of the only ways to hold the city accountable for failing to count their ballots.
But others see it differently. “In an era where the reliability of elections is being challenged by some groups in completely spurious ways, it seems to me that this lawsuit just adds to that noise,” Ediger said.
Lawsuits seeking monetary damages for disenfranchisement are now rare, but were more common in the late 1800s and 1900s, when Black voters were intentionally and repeatedly disenfranchised by election workers. Then, the fines forced the government to think twice, said Ediger. But there’s no similar pattern of errors or intentionality here in Madison, he added, which makes him doubt the lawsuit’s purpose.
Haimowitz said he also opposed the lawsuit, despite how much it has shaken his confidence.
“I’m not sure that the city should pay such a heavy price for this,” Haimowitz said, adding that at a time when some Republicans are peddling “Stop the Steal” narratives and casting doubt on election integrity, especially in battleground states like Wisconsin, the Law Forward letter unnerved him.
“That kind of money could be debilitating to a city elections board that is already under immense scrutiny and pressure to get it all right,” he said.
Law Forward staff attorney Scott Thompson pushed back on comparisons between the case and post-2020 lawsuits filed by Republicans, including one that sought to throw out over 200,000 absentee ballots in Wisconsin.
“That cavalier attitude towards votes that we saw in 2020 is simply unacceptable, and not compatible with democracy,” he said. “And so what do we do with that? Well, I can tell you what we will not do: We will not stand idly by if hundreds of people in a community lose the right to vote because their ballot simply wasn’t counted.”
He said that lawsuits often make people uneasy, but that their perspective may change when a fundamental right is taken away. He declined to directly comment on some of the disenfranchised voters’ issues with the case.
For some disenfranchised voters, financial damages are part of accountability. Precious Ayodabo, a named plaintiff, wrote in a Cap Times column that her disenfranchised absentee vote “is worth enough” to warrant compensation.
“It’s worth enough that I waited for hours in line to cast it. It’s worth enough that politicians spend millions of dollars to receive it. It’s worth enough that people have put their lives on the line and died to protect it,” she wrote.
Thompson declined to make Ayodabo and the other plaintiffs available for interviews. Of the 193 voters, eight are plaintiffs in the case, he said.
Others who support the lawsuit say it’s less about personal payment and more about forcing systemic change. Fairbotham said she’s grateful the case is pushing the city to take the error seriously, particularly after the Wisconsin Elections Commission found the city violated state law.
Thompson said the lawsuit isn’t about making sure the government knows “every single jot and tittle” of absentee voting procedure, but to ensure election officials count every vote, which he defined as “the absolute most basic obligation.”
“If we’re setting an unrealistic expectation that any mistake made by an election administrator opens you up to a lawsuit, that feels like an impossible situation to be in,” she said. “Election administrators take this so seriously and do everything they can to ensure mistakes don’t happen,” she added, “but they do.”
For Haimowitz — a voter who has helped others register to vote and served as a poll worker — the question isn’t just whether the city fixes the problem. It’s whether he can move past having his ballot go uncounted.
“It was something that made me think it’s clearly not that easy to vote,” he said.
Alexander Shur is a reporter for Votebeat based in Wisconsin. Contact Shur at ashur@votebeat.org.
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers says President Donald Trump's order to restrict absentee ballots from going to people not vetted by his administration is "bulls---," and he looks forward to seeing the president in court.
A mail ballot drop box is seen at a polling station on Nov. 4, 2025, in Arlington, Virginia. (Photo by Alex Wong/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump signed a sweeping executive order on Tuesday that attempts to restrict mail-in voting, a White House priority certain to face significant legal challenges.
The order directs the U.S. Department of Homeland Security along with the Social Security Administration to compile a list of voting-age American citizens in each state and share it with state election officials. The order also requires the U.S. Postal Service to only send and receive ballots that include tracking barcodes.
Trump’s order represents a major escalation in his effort to assert presidential control over elections, which under the U.S. Constitution are administered by the states. Trump last year attempted to unilaterally impose a proof of citizenship requirement to vote in federal elections in an executive order that was blocked in federal court.
The move also reflects a long-held focus by Trump and his allies on noncitizen voters. Studies have shown noncitizen voting is extremely rare.
“I think this will help a lot with elections,” Trump said.
National database of adult citizens
Homeland Security operates the SAVE system, a powerful computer program that can verify citizenship.
DHS has previously invited states to run their voter rolls through SAVE, which flags voters as potential noncitizens. Some election officials criticize the system, saying it wrongly identifies U.S. citizens as possibly ineligible.
The U.S. Department of Justice as recently as last week denied any efforts to create a national voter registration list. While the executive order does not explicitly mandate the creation of a voter list, it essentially marks an effort by the White House to create a national database of adult U.S. citizens.
The order requires Homeland Security to enable states to routinely supplement or suggest changes to each state’s citizenship list. Federal officials would also be required to allow individuals to access their own records and update or correct them ahead of elections.
Under the executive order, the postmaster general must propose rules to require all outbound ballot mail to be sent in an envelope that includes a barcode for tracking. The order also requires that states must inform the U.S. Postal Service at least 90 days before federal elections whether they intend to allow ballots to be sent through the mail.
“Instead of focusing on lowering the cost of energy, groceries, and health care, Donald Trump is desperately attempting to take over and rig our elections and avoid accountability in November,” U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat, said in a statement shortly after Trump announced the order. “This executive order is a blatant, unconstitutional abuse of power.”
SAVE America Act
Trump has pushed Congress to pass the SAVE America Act, which would require individuals to produce documents, such as a passport or birth certificate, proving their citizenship in order to register to vote. The U.S. Senate is debating the bill, but it appears unlikely to have enough support to overcome a filibuster.
Trump has repeatedly asked Republicans to add three provisions to the bill, including restrictions on mail-in voting, with exceptions for members of the military, people who are ill and those on vacation.
The president has also previously promised to advance voting restrictions, with or without Congress. Earlier this month, Trump voted by mail in Florida.
The executive order directs the Justice Department and other federal agencies to withhold federal funds from non-compliant states and localities “where such withholding is authorized by law.”
Tuesday’s order is certain to face legal challenges. The Constitution gives Congress — not the president by executive order — the power to override state election regulations.
Marc Elias, a prominent voting rights litigator, promised to fight the executive order.
“If Trump signs an unconstitutional Executive Order to take over voting, we will sue,” Elias wrote on social media. “I don’t bluff and I usually win.”
Republican National Committee Chairman Joe Gruters praised the order, saying Trump was restoring voter confidence. “Protecting America’s ballot box isn’t optional – it’s the foundation of our republic,” Grunters said.
DOJ lawsuits against states
The Justice Department has sued 29 states and the District of Columbia for copies of their voter rolls that contain sensitive personal information on voters, such as driver’s licenses and partial Social Security numbers. About a dozen states have voluntarily provided the data, but most are fighting the demands in court.
Three federal judges have so far ruled against the Justice Department. The administration is appealing and in court documents has argued that swift court decisions are necessary to ensure the security and fairness of the midterms.
The Trump administration has said the data is necessary to verify only citizens are registered to vote. Last week, a Justice Department lawyer confirmed in court that voter data would be shared with Homeland Security.
“Some may freak out about this, but honestly, this is hilarious,” David Becker, executive director of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research and a former U.S. Department of Justice Voting Section attorney, wrote on social media about the Trump order.
“It’s clearly unconstitutional, will be blocked immediately, and the only thing it will accomplish is to make liberal lawyers wealthier. He might as well sign an EO banning gravity.”
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs determines the results of the 2020 presidential election and recounts. (Screenshot | WisEye)
Wisconsin Elections Commission Chair Ann Jacobs is warning voters that it’s against state law to wager on an election if you are casting a ballot in that race.
Jacobs’ comments, made last week on X, come as prediction market sites such as Kalshi and Polymarket have continued to grow in popularity.
“I know it’s all the rage to bet on everything, but you cannot bet on an election in Wisconsin,” Jacobs wrote. “If you do, your ballot can be challenged & thrown out … So go vote and save your $ for playing Euchre with your uncle!”
Wisconsin’s election laws include a provision that states nobody “shall be allowed to vote in any election in which the person has made or become interested, directly or indirectly, in any bet or wager depending upon the result of the election.”
Currently on Kalshi, tens of thousands of dollars in bets have been placed on the result, turnout and margin of victory of next week’s state Supreme Court election. Even more money has been wagered on the state’s upcoming race for governor — including $85,000 on the Democratic primary race.
The ethics of participating in prediction markets have come under scrutiny as their popularity has grown, particularly the opportunity for placing bets that are akin to insider trading. More than $500 million in bets were placed on the prospect of the U.S. going to war with Iran shortly before major announcements about U.S. military actions in the country, NBC News reported.
The law against betting on elections has been on the books in some form since 1849. Other states, including Arizona and Texas, also have laws against wagering on elections.
Jacobs told Wisconsin Public Radio that the state isn’t going to go looking for offenders of the election betting law, however if someone brags online about a big win, that could open them up to scrutiny and the potential cancellation of their vote.
“No, the state is not going out and issuing search warrants to betting platforms to cross reference against voters,” Jacobs told WPR. “I think the most likely way this would come up would be exactly how you think, which is somebody posted on social media saying, ‘Hey, I made this big bet,’ and then someone who doesn’t like them reports it to the authorities.”
Jacobs told the Wisconsin Examiner a voter’s ballot could be voided because of betting through the state’s existing ballot challenge processes, which allow anyone to object to the counting of an absentee ballot. She compared it to challenges that are received for people who post selfies with their ballots.
“Who would do such a thing? people who hate you,” Jacobs said. “It’s almost always the opposing candidate. Is that a lot of work? Yes. Is it sort of silly? Yes. If you think you’re going to get a big amount of money, then don’t vote.”
The emergence of the prediction markets was also an impetus for the state Legislature quickly passing a bill to legalize online sports betting in Wisconsin. That bill is currently awaiting the signature of Gov. Tony Evers.
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