MILWAUKEE — In overturning a national right to abortion last summer, the U.S. Supreme Court gave conservatives a policy they’d been seeking for nearly half a century. In the process, the justices also angered millions of Americans who have made their views known in key elections.

The latest sign of that dynamic came in the Wisconsin Supreme Court election Tuesday, when a Milwaukee County judge won by 11 points to give liberals the majority after 15 years of conservative control.

The candidate and the Democrats supporting her focused relentlessly on abortion rights in a state that saw the availability of abortion disappear after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Wisconsin court is now expected in the next year or two to overturn the state’s 19th-century ban on most abortions.

Democrats plan to continue to rally voters around abortion rights, starting this fall with legislative races in Virginia, where the Republican governor has pushed for a 15-week abortion ban. Abortion could also loom large in some of the dozens of state Supreme Court races that will be held around the country next year. It’s sure to play an outsize role in the 2024 presidential election, as well as House and Senate races, because Congress could consider a nationwide abortion ban.

“I think the moment when Republicans in the presidential primary debate are asked whether they’ll support a national abortion ban and they raise their hands is the moment that they will lose the next presidential election,” said Ben Wikler, the chairman of the Democratic Party of Wisconsin.

Ronna McDaniel, the chairwoman of the Republican National Committee, said the Wisconsin results showed that conservatives need to do a better job with messaging when it comes to abortion.

“This is not an issue that’s going away for our party in a post-Dobbs world, and we can’t put our head in the sand and think it’s going to heading into 2024,” she said Wednesday on Fox News.

In Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race, Janet Protasiewicz’s victory on Tuesday has implications for far more than abortion rights because Democrats could bring challenges to voting rules, union limits and election maps that have given Republicans nearly two-thirds majorities in the state legislature.

Protasiewicz’s win is just the latest evidence of how abortion rights are galvanizing voters.

Less than six weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court issued the ruling, voters in Kansas rejected an amendment to the state constitution that would have eliminated abortion protections. In November’s midterm elections, the decision helped Democrats withstand head winds that normally doom the president’s party during a first term. Democrats kept the U.S. Senate and won key races for governor; while they lost the U.S. House, they prevented Republicans from gaining more than a tiny margin of control.

In Michigan, voters in November resoundingly supported an amendment to the state constitution to guarantee access to abortion. While they were at the polls, they reelected Democrats to statewide positions – in some cases by double-digit margins – and gave them control of the state legislature. One of Democrats’ first acts was to vote to repeal the state’s abortion ban with a law that Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D) signed on Wednesday.

In Wisconsin last year, Gov. Tony Evers (D) and Attorney General Josh Kaul (D) rode to reelection by focusing on abortion rights and reminding voters regularly that they had sued to overturn the state’s abortion ban.

Their challenge to the ban will be heard before a trial judge in Madison next month. Whatever the ruling, the case is sure to be appealed to the state Supreme Court. During the campaign, Protasiewicz said she couldn’t say how she would vote in the case but repeatedly stressed her support for abortion rights. In one speech, given in March at a conference of county officials, Protasiewicz said she values “a woman’s freedom to make her own health-care decisions with her doctor, family and faith.”

Her opponent, former state Supreme Court justice Daniel Kelly, criticized Protasiewicz for emphasizing her political views, saying it was inappropriate for candidates to telegraph how they would rule on pending cases. Years before he became a justice, Kelly made his own opinions clear in blog posts that said abortions take away lives and argued that Democrats support access to the procedure to “preserve sexual libertinism.”

Protasiewicz drubbed Kelly by double digits, according to unofficial returns. Turnout was high, with nearly 40% of eligible voters casting ballots. In comparable elections, typically less that 30% of the electorate shows up.

At Protasiewicz’s victory party, the three liberals who are already on the court swayed to Lizzo before joining the incoming justice onstage to celebrate. In interviews, they said the Dobbs decision helped Protasiewicz connect with voters – a welcome opportunity when so many voters don’t know the ins and outs of what the court does.

“It’s very difficult to get people to understand how the Supreme Court impacts their everyday life because we get cases sometimes and the dispute happened months, years, decades before it ever comes to us,” liberal Justice Jill Karofsky said. “Dobbs absolutely showed people how a Supreme Court can impact people’s everyday life.”

The liberals will have control of the court until at least 2025, when liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley is up for reelection. Bradley, who has been on the court since 1995 and plans to seek a fourth 10-year term, attributed liberals’ ability to take over the court this week in part to Dobbs and other decisions handed down in recent years by conservatives on the U.S. Supreme Court.

“I think that people are hungry for change right now,” Bradley said. “And then you have the United States Supreme Court. Some of the decisions that the U.S. Supreme Court has rendered, I think, have really caused a loss of public trust and confidence, and I think that people like Janet Protasiewicz had a message that resonated with people. It’s hopefully a step towards restoring public trust and confidence.”

Again avoiding the topic of abortion Tuesday night, Kelly told supporters he respected the will of voters but considered Protasiewicz an unworthy opponent who had smeared him. He warned of dark times for Wisconsin, closing his speech with: “I wish Wisconsin the best of luck because I think it’s going to need it.”

Chief Justice Annette Ziegler, a conservative, said Wednesday that she expected the justices to turn their attention to the work of the court now that the election is over.

“The court’s going to survive political changes, as it always has,” she said in an interview. “Campaigns are campaigns, but we come together and we decide cases. We welcome our new justices as they are elected, and we proceed on with the business of the court.”

Ziegler endorsed Kelly late in the campaign after initially backing a conservative who didn’t make it through the February primary. She declined Wednesday to talk about the role abortion played in the race.

In Virginia, abortion is proving to once again be an energizing issue as this fall’s legislative races get underway, said Susan Swecker, the chairwoman of the state Democratic Party.

Voters have a succinct message for Republicans, she said: “We women – over half the population, you know – are disgusted, outraged and mad as hell that you want to treat us like second-class citizens and take away our rights that have been well-established since 1973. Now then, there is a price you’re going to pay for it. It’s going to be at the ballot box.”

After the Wisconsin results came in, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Republicans need to recognize what voters are telling them around the country.

“The message from voters has been clear: Americans want the freedom to make reproductive health-care decisions without government interference,” she said.

Former president Donald Trump, who appointed three of the justices who signed onto Dobbs, didn’t mention abortion in explaining why Kelly lost. Instead, he said Kelly failed to win because he hadn’t asked for or received Trump’s endorsement – even though Kelly also lost by a wide margin in 2020, when he did have Trump’s endorsement.

“He bragged that he won’t seek Trump’s Endorsement, so I didn’t give it-which guaranteed his loss,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social platform.

Wisconsin’s election played out the same day a 34-count indictment against Trump was unsealed.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) is expected to approve a ban on most abortions after six weeks of pregnancy after signing into law a 15-week ban last year. Asked recently about the six-week bill, DeSantis, who is expected to run for president, said, “I’m willing to sign great life legislation.”

But in a sign that GOP leaders are treading gingerly, DeSantis has not publicly pushed for the measure in the same way he has championed other bills moving through the Republican-controlled state legislature. He didn’t mention abortion over the weekend in speeches that otherwise dwelled at length on his legislative priorities, from a ban on “central bank digital currency” to a crackdown on “diversity, equity and inclusion” programs at state colleges.

With DeSantis traveling the country and headed to Michigan this week, Democratic leaders there are seeking to highlight Florida’s abortion bill, scheduling a call with reporters on what they termed “DeSantis’s Extreme MAGA Abortion Ban.”

Former Pennsylvania congressman Charlie Dent, a Republican who supports abortion rights, said the results in Wisconsin should provide another wake-up call for the party that is staking a position on an issue that is not politically popular.

“The bottom line is that Republicans must acknowledge that throughout the country, they’re on the losing side of public opinion on this issue,” Dent said. “Republicans are discovering that a lot of their voters don’t want to make abortion illegal. It’s that simple, and it’s not an inconsequential number.”

John Brabender, a Republican strategist who ran the political campaigns of former senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania, a staunch opponent of abortion, said he doesn’t believe the Wisconsin result is a harbinger for future elections. Brabender pointed to the reelection of Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wis., last year after the Dobbs ruling as evidence that abortion isn’t the primary driver for voters.

“I think for people wanting to see this as a major precursor to 2024 is remarkably naive,” Brabender said.

Johnson opposes abortion but took a nuanced approach in his 2022 campaign, arguing that the state should hold a referendum so voters could decide Wisconsin’s abortion policies. Republicans who control the state legislature didn’t take Johnson up on his idea.

Wisconsin’s abortion ban – enacted in 1849, a year after Wisconsin became a state – prohibits the procedure in all cases except to save the life of the pregnant person. Democrats seized on the state’s ban to get voters to the polls on Tuesday, noting that the ban was passed decades before women could vote and does not include exceptions for rape or incest.

“I’ve never seen so many students explain before when canvassing that they’ve never voted before, but now because of abortion, they feel like it’s important to vote,” said Isabelle Dunai, 23, a senior at the University of Wisconsin at Madison. “I think it’s horrific what has happened, but the response from people, students in particular, has been astounding.”

Jason Rivera, 22, a senior at the university, said abortion rights clearly defined the Supreme Court race.

“It’s more than just abortion. It’s like literal health care for women,” said Rivera, who heads a chapter of the liberal group Rise. “It was a law that was made before people had to wash their hands to perform surgeries, and it’s insane to me.”

Mark Jefferson, the executive director of the Republican Party of Wisconsin, said conservative candidates can’t cede abortion as an issue to Democrats.

“We haven’t put together a coherent message or a coherent policy response since Roe v. Wade was overturned,” he said. “Now, the courts may do that for us in this state, and that will change the dynamics of the abortion debate going into ’24.”

 

Itkowitz reported from Washington, Knowles from Tallahassee and Wells from Madison.

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