2023s Biggest, Most Unusual Race Centers on Abortion and Democracy

The election for a swing seat on Wisconsins Supreme Court has huge policy stakes for the battleground state. Cash is pouring in, and some of the candidates have shed any pretense of judicial neutrality.

In 10 weeks, Wisconsin will hold an election that carries bigger policy stakes than any other contest in America in 2023.

The April race, for a seat on the states evenly divided Supreme Court, will determine the fate of abortion rights, gerrymandered legislative maps and the governors appointment powers and perhaps even the states 2024 presidential election if the outcome is again contested.

The courts importance stems from Wisconsins deadlocked state government. Since 2019, Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat, has faced off against a Republican-controlled Legislature with near-supermajority control thanks to one of the countrys most aggressive partisan gerrymanders, itself approved last year by the Wisconsin justices.

Wisconsins Supreme Court has been left to arbitrate a host of thorny issues in the state, and has nearly always sided with Republicans. But now, with a conservative justice retiring, liberals hope to reverse many of those decisions by taking control of the open seat and its 10-year term.