MADISON, Wis. (Legal Newsline) - Now officially the most judicial race in America's history, Wisconsin's April 1 election appears to be tied.
Figures from a poll conducted March 9-10 show a 47-all tie between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative Brad Schimel. The winner will decide which side gets a 4-3 majority in Wisconsin, which does not assign political parties to judicial candidates.
Wisconsin Manufacturers & Commerce hired OnMessage Inc. to poll 600 likely voters with a margin of error of 4%.
"This is a winnable race for either candidate right now, and will simply boil down to whichever sides does a better job of getting out their voters," WMC vice president of government relations Scott Manley said.
The two candidates, both currently circuit judges (Schimel is a former state attorney general too) tried to get their messages out during a March 12 debate. The race has drawn millions from groups outside of the state, including Elon Musk's America PAC.
Crawford called him "Elon Schimel," to which Schimel responded, "I don't control that money. We're not allowed to coordinate with outside groups. I haven't solicited that money from them. They've made this decision on their own to support my campaign and they've decided what their messaging looks like without any assistance from me."
As for direct, individual contributions, counting donors who have given Crawford at least $10,000 or more this year ahead of a February reporting deadline, Legal Newsline determined that out of the $620,150 she raised from those big spenders, 87% ($541,150) came from out of state.
Out-of-state donors giving $10,000 or more to Schimel account for 20% of those donations ($90,000 of $442,500 total).
Two years ago, spending reached $56 million in an election that saw Janet Protasiewicz give liberals a majority on the court. Topics like redistricting and abortion are popular reasons for interest in the swing state.
With almost three weeks before the election, the 2025 race has exceeded that figure. WisPolitics recently reported spending is at $59 million, with $33.3 million supporting Schimel.
Schimel's campaign says Crawford is "funded by George Soros, the biggest supporter of soft-on-crime prosecutors in America." A list of felons who received lighter sentences from Crawford than recommended by prosecutors includes a four-year sentence to a man found guilty of sexual assault of two children eight years apart and another child molester allowed to live across the street from an elementary school while out on a $500 bond.
In the two years since Protasiewicz's election, conservatives have accused the liberal majority of a power grab, tyranny and gutting the people's access to courts.
Conservative justice Rebecca Grassl Bradley has been an outspoken critic, filing dissenting opinions in key cases that accused the liberals of replacing the law with their own ideologies.
In one case, the liberals overturned a decision a then-conservative-led Supreme Court had issued two years earlier. Democrats said the law allows absentee voters to put their votes in ballot drop boxes, rather than return them in the mail or in person.
The decision went against the GOP majority in the legislature, which said the law forbid drop boxes. Democrat Gov. Tony Evers intervene and urged the liberals to overrule the previous ruling, which they did.
"The majority again forsakes the rule of law in an attempt to advance its political agenda," Rebecca Grassl Bradley wrote.
"The majority began this term by tossing the legislative maps adopted by this court... for the sole purpose of facilitating 'the redistribution of political power in the Wisconsin legislature.'
"The majority ends the term by loosening the legislature's regulations governing the privilege of absentee voting in the hopes of tipping the scales in future elections."