Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar Make Closing Arguments of Campaign
A quiet ending to liberal vs conservative contest for Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Judge Chris Taylor (left) and Judge Maria Lazar (right) are running for the Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2026. Courtesy of the campaigns
In the waning days of a relatively understated race for a 10-year term on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, candidates Maria Lazar and Chris Taylor vowed to be independent justices, even as they made their pitches from local political party headquarters.
Just less than a dozen Republicans gathered at the Eau Claire County Republican Party headquarters early Friday morning. They chatted over coffee and doughnuts just before 8 a.m. when Lazar, a conservative state appeals judge, arrived for a meet-and-greet. Scattered around the room was a life-sized cardboard cutout of President Donald Trump along with campaign-style signs. One of them read “Deport liberals.”
The night before, Lazar and Taylor, a liberal state appeals judge, held their first and only debate ahead of the April 7 election.
Conservative Wisconsin Appeals Judge Maria Lazar speaks to supporters at the Eau Claire County Republican Party headquarters during her final campaign tour ahead of the April 7, 2026 Supreme Court election. Rich Kremer/WPR
As she has throughout the campaign, Lazar leaned on her decades of experience as a private attorney, assistant state attorney general and judge. She boasted about her work ethic, telling the GOP faithful she’s 10 appeals ahead of schedule while also campaigning.
Lazar also continued her attacks on Taylor’s years as a lobbyist for Planned Parenthood of Wisconsin and as Democratic state representative. She told the group word-of-mouth and grassroots energy can defeat what has been a large fundraising gap.
“This state can speak louder and much more clearer, and say the court is not for sale,” said Lazar. “Justice is not for sale, and we actually want someone on that court who is extremely law nerdy and boring, and doesn’t care about politics at all, and only cares about the law and the Constitution.”
The Supreme Court race between Lazar and Taylor is a shadow of last year’s record-breaking $115 million campaign that included a visit from billionaire Elon Musk to hand out million-dollar checks to encourage people to register to vote. In that contest, former Republican Attorney General Brad Schimel lost to now-Justice Susan Crawford, a liberal, by around 10 percentage points.
Polling from the Marquette University Law School on the race between Taylor and Lazar has consistently shown most voters haven’t decided who they’ll choose. Speaking to reporters in Eau Claire, Lazar said that’s welcome news.
“I think the good thing to look at for me is the fact that my opponent has spent over $5 million and the people in the state do not like her, do not want her and do not trust her for a 10 year term on this court,” Lazar said.
Taylor pitches ‘incredible opportunity’ to resist federal overreach into Wisconsin
During a mid-morning campaign stop at the Brown County Democratic Party headquarters, Taylor fired up the crowd of just more than a dozen Democrats, asking how many “are fired up to help protect our democracy?”
Pictures of former Democratic Presidents John F. Kennedy, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Joe Biden and former Vice President Kamala Harris hung on walls around the room.
“We have an opportunity with this election to strengthen a pro-democracy majority on our court that’s going to protect our rights and freedoms, that’s going to protect our democracy and our elections,” Taylor said, “and that is going to hold and resist the efforts of the federal government to come into our state and to take away and infringe on our independence as a state.”
She talked about her grandmother getting a union job to help raise three children and her mother’s time as a school teacher. She said that taught her “the law is a powerful tool for helping people and protecting people.”
Liberal Wisconsin 4th District Court of Appeals Judge Chris Taylor mingles with supporters, Friday, at the Brown County Democratic Party headquarters in Green Bay during her final tour before the April 7 Supreme Court election. Joe Schulz/WPR
Taylor said she’s proud of her time working for Planned Parenthood and serving as a Democratic lawmaker, but “really my home is the judiciary.” She said she’s heard thousands of cases as a circuit court judge and written dozens of decisions at the court of appeals that have never been overturned.
“I have a spine of steel when it comes to standing up for you, and you all know the stakes of this election,” Taylor said. “We are fighting so hard for our rights: our right to speech, our right to peacefully protest without being subjected to violence, our right to make our own private decisions about our lives and our right to live in a democracy which we have got to protect. It is under threat right now. The good news is that we can do it.”
When Taylor spoke with reporters afterward, she said the Supreme Court race has been a bit quieter “because we haven’t had Elon Musk come in and try to buy a seat on our state Supreme Court like last year” and she’s feeling positive about her chances on Tuesday. She continued the framing of her campaign as a way to stop the federal government from overreaching in state elections, which she said are “eroding our rights and eroding our democracy.”
“All of that is really concerning, and I do hope some of that motivates people to come out and raise their voices and help me get elected to our Supreme Court,” said Taylor.
Should Lazar win, liberals would retain their 4-3 majority. If Taylor wins, liberals would grow their majority to 5-2.
Chris Taylor and Maria Lazar make closing arguments in Wisconsin Supreme Court race was originally published by Wisconsin Public Radio.
If you think stories like this are important, become a member of Urban Milwaukee and help support real, independent journalism. Plus you get some cool added benefits.
