Early vote down by more than half compared to 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race
The tally of early votes in this year’s Supreme Court race is less than half what it was at the same point in last year’s record-breaking contest.
From March 24 through April 5, 148,307 Wisconsinites cast early, in-person votes across for either conservative Wisconsin Appeals Judge Maria Lazar or liberal Wisconsin Appeals Judge Chris Taylor, according to data from the Wisconsin Elections Commission.
On the Monday before last year’s nationally watched Supreme Court election between former Republican Wisconsin Attorney General Brad Schimel and now-Justice Susan Crawford, more than 361,000 early, in-person votes were cast. In that race, unlike this year’s, ideological control of the Supreme Court was up for grabs.
While the period for early voting is over, absentee ballots are still circulating in Wisconsin. All told, 324,396 absentee ballots, including the in-person votes, have been returned to county clerks. The total represents a 50 percent decline compared to the total of absentee ballots reported the day ahead of the 2025 Supreme Court election.
https://www.wpr.org/news/early-vote-down-2026-more-than-half-compared-2025-wisconsin-supreme-court-race