Wisconsin is at it again. The April 1 State Supreme Court election has the potential to ultimately swing control of the U.S. House of Representatives to Democrats in the coming 2026 midterms.
Technically a nonpartisan race, the contest between liberal candidate Susan Crawford and conservative candidate Brad Schimel could lead to a redrawing of the state’s congressional map to a more Democrat-friendly one.
The Numbers
Writing in The Federalist, investigative researcher and election expert Jacob Grandstaff posits that if Crawford wins, Republicans are likely to lose two Wisconsin congressional seats in the 2026 midterms. Grandstaff says it would only take slight tweaking of the state’s congressional maps to yield control to Democrats in 2026:
In 2024, Rep. Bryan Steil, R-Wis., won the 1st Congressional District by 40,000 votes. Rep. Derrick Van Orden, R-Wis., won the 3rd Congressional District by just 11,000 votes. It would only take a slight reshuffling of District 1 into parts of Milwaukee and District 3 into part of Dane County to turn both into noncompetitive, safe Democrat districts.
Republicans hold a slim 218-213 House majority. The four vacancies requiring special elections are in evenly split safe districts, which could bring Republicans’ advantage to 220–215. However, if Democrats pull an upset victory in New York District 21’s special election after GOP Rep. Elise Stefanik vacates her seat, Republicans will hold a razor-thin 219-216 majority. Handing Wisconsin’s 1st and 3rd Congressional Districts to Democrats through redistricting will give them a near automatic one-seat majority before anyone even casts a ballot in 2026.
Grandstaff points to legislative map changes brought about after liberal justice Janet Protasiewicz defeated conservative Daniel Kelly in 2023 as indication of what can happen with the congressional maps.
Redrawing the Lines
After Protasiewicz’s victory, as predicted, Democrats immediately pushed to redraw Wisconsin’s legislative maps. Republicans accepted a map drawn up by Democratic Governor Tony Evers because the new leftist-tilted court threated to choose its own, even worse, map. Evers’ map resulted in Democrats gaining 14 legislative seats in 2024 with the potential to win complete Chamber control in 2026. Protasiewicz’s win also reversed Wisconsin’s short-lived prohibition on ballot drop boxes.
However, if Schimel wins, Republicans will likely move to redraw Wisconsin’s legislative maps back to the pre- Protasiewicz period. According to The New York Times, “Edith Jorge-Tuñón, the president of the Republican State Leadership Committee, which helps candidates for state legislatures, wrote in a memo to donors this month that if Judge Schimel won in April, last year’s Wisconsin legislative redistricting ‘could be reversed by a new conservative majority.’”
Crawford, for her part, is not commenting on the matter, even though she recently attended a call focused on the issue. She appeared on a donor advisory call set up by the liberal nonprofit group Focus for Democracy. The subject line of the email invitation for the call read, “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026,” suggesting Crawford would vote in favor of congressional redistricting litigation.
Crawford’s campaign admitted she was on the call, but insisted she didn’t talk about congressional maps. She said she only appeared to give a biography about herself and talk about why she was running. Moreover, regarding the subject line, she said:
Well, I don’t think that the email that was sent out was an appropriate way to announce the judicial candidate, to be frank.… I also did not see that email or the way it was being billed before I participated.
The race is expected to become far more expensive than the $56-million Protasiewicz-Kelly race.
Outside Influence
On Monday, Crawford’s campaign announced it had raised more than $17 million just between February 4 and March 17, netting a total of $24 million since she launched her run. Among Crawford’s donors are “philanthropist” George Soros, Illinois Governor JB Pritzker, LinkedIn founder Reid Hoffman, and even actor Kevin Bacon. A financial filing report shows that many outsiders have poured money into the liberal justice’s coffers. Schimel spokesman Jacob Fische said Crawford’s latest report shows that 80 percent of her donors are from outside Wisconsin, adding that this shows she is running “purely for the interests of national Democrats.”
As for Schimel, he has raised $14.3 million since getting into the race, $8.8 million from the state GOP. But Democrats are trying to connect him to the latest boogeyman the Left is using to mobilize dispirited Democrat voters. Elon Musk gave $3 million to the state Democratic Party, but reports say he has dropped a total of $19 million in overall support for Schimel. Musk’s super PAC, America PAC, spent $11.5 million on digital advertising, mailers, texts, field operations, and voter turnout.
The chairman of the state Democratic Party referred to Schimel as Musk’s “latest pawn.” Crawford accused Musk of trying to buy a seat on Wisconsin’s Supreme Court, defending her outside support as a benevolent nationwide crusade to stop “Elon Schimel” from buying the race.
Controversial Comments
Schimel is also facing criticism for comments he made March 18 while appearing on a conservative radio show hosted by Jay Weber. He encouraged his supporters to “get our votes banked, make this too big to rig so we don’t have to worry that at 11:30 in Milwaukee, they’re going to find bags of ballots that they forgot to put into the machines.” He referenced former U.S. Senate candidate Eric Hovde’s experience in November when he was ahead all night only to suddenly lose after Milwaukee reported a conveniently large batch of votes for Tammy Baldwin.
The official explanation is that Milwaukee’s election officials reported even before the race that ballots would be coming in late with a huge influx of Democratic votes. Mainstream media continues to this day to insist that any Wisconsin candidate who appears skeptical of the state’s voting infrastructure is pushing “baseless claims.” But evidence points to the contrary.
Electoral Irregularities
Early in 2024, The New American interviewed former Wisconsin Supreme Court justice Michael Gableman, who conducted an investigation into the 2020 presidential election. He published two reports about his findings before the legislature put the breaks on his probe.
The reports revealed how Democratic political operatives, funded by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, came to Wisconsin and hijacked the election-administration process in some of the state’s major cities. Gableman reported that election machines were connected to the internet, allowing votes to be changed. And he documented communications that suggested election-night coordination of a nefarious kind. He used the word “unlawful” multiple times to describe his findings. In a section detailing chicanery in elder-care facilities, Gableman reported, “Rampant fraud and abuse occurred statewide at Wisconsin’s nursing homes and other residential care facilities in relation to absentee voting at these facilities.” Gableman called Wisconsin’s 2020 election “rigged.” In his interview, he said:
And when I say rigged, I mean that it wasn’t run according to the traditional — and this is inarguable — that it wasn’t run according to the rules and the law as they had been in place.
Since Gableman’s findings, Wisconsinites approved referendums that bar outside groups from funding state elections and mandate that only designated election officials be allowed to work on elections, a clear response to what happened in 2020.
