Janet Protasiewicz and Daniel Kelly are running in the nonpartisan general election for Wisconsin Supreme Court on April 4, 2023. The elections are officially nonpartisan, but justices and candidates are often considered to be liberal or conservative. The current court is considered to have a 4-3 conservative majority. With Justice Patience Roggensack — a member of the court’s conservative majority — retiring, the general election will determine ideological control of the court.
In the four-candidate primary in February, liberal candidate Protasiewicz and conservative Kelly advanced to the general election after receiving 46.5% and 24.2% of the primary vote, respectively. Together, Protasiewicz and Everett Mitchell — the other liberal candidate in the race — received 53.9% of the vote, while Kelly and Jennifer Dorow — the other conservative — received a combined 46.1%.
Looking at the previous three state supreme court primaries, the combined share of the vote liberal and conservative candidates received in the primary indicated the general election’s outcome in 2018. That year, liberal candidates Rebecca Dallet and Tim Burns received a combined 53.7% of the primary vote, while conservative Michael Screnock received 46.5%. Dallet defeated Screnock 55.7% to 44.2% in the general election.
