Final Verdict: Liberal concedes defeat to Conservative in Wisconsin Supreme Court election

Final Verdict: Liberal concedes defeat to Conservative in Wisconsin Supreme Court election

A conservative victory in Wisconsin now is a done deal in the election to replace retiring uber-liberal Justice Shirley Abrahamson.

We previously reported on the victory by conservative appeals court Justice Brian Hagedorn, Wisconsin Sup Ct election has Democrats worried for 2020 – Conservative has unexpected lead heading into possible recount.

There will be no recount, not that it would have made a difference since recounts rarely change more than a couple of hundred votes. Here, Hagedorn won by almost 6000 votes.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reports, Lisa Neubauer concedes Supreme Court race, prepares Appeals Court re-election bid:

State Appeals Court Judge Lisa Neubauer on Wednesday conceded the race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court to her colleague Brian Hagedorn.

The concession comes more than a week after an election during which Neubauer trailed Hagedorn by about 6,000 votes and concludes a bitter competition for the 10-year term.

“I love being a judge. I treasure our state, our judiciary and its role in our democracy but this race was never about me. It was really about the integrity and the independence of our courts,” Neubauer said in an interview Tuesday with the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “We knew it was going to be close. We laid it all out there. We put everything we had into this race.”

This is a devastating turnaround, since as AP reported in early February, Liberals eye 2020 takeover of Wisconsin Supreme Court:

Wisconsin liberals hope to take a key step this spring toward breaking a long conservative stranglehold on the state’s Supreme Court, in an election that could also serve as a barometer of the political mood in a key presidential swing state.

If the liberal-backed candidate wins the April 2 state Supreme Court race, liberals would be in prime position to take over the court when the next seat comes up in 2020 — during a presidential primary when Democrats expect to benefit from strong turnout.

The bitterly partisan court, which conservatives have controlled since 2008, has upheld several polarizing Republican-backed laws, none more so than former GOP Gov. Scott Walker’s law that essentially eliminated collective bargaining for public workers.

If liberals can win in April and again in 2020, they would have the majority until at least 2025.

Liberals are worried this might mean Trump will win again in Wisconsin in 2020. The NY Times laments:

With their recent selection of Milwaukee for their party’s 2020 convention, Democrats left little doubt that they believe their path to the White House runs through the Midwest in general and Wisconsin in particular.

Their optimism spiked in November, when Democrats defeated Scott Walker, the state’s two-term conservative governor. And they were energized and optimistic again this week for an intensely politicized State Supreme Court election they hoped would show Wisconsin trending steadily blue.

Then reality hit: A conservative judge, Brian Hagedorn, appeared to win a narrow, upset victory on Tuesday, underscoring instead how competitive Wisconsin politics remain.

I don’t know what this means for 2020, but if the Supreme Court election reflects a fired-up conservative Wisconsin base, the type that delivered victories for Scott Walker, then Democrats should be very worried.

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