With support from across the country, state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor of Madison is outraising her opponent from the political Right nearly ten to one, spooking conservatives who hope to hold the seat.
By Gus Pirlot and Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT
State Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor of Madison has reported raising nearly $3.5 million since she announced her candidacy in May of 2025, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, which tracks political spending. That dwarfs the fundraising haul of the political right’s candidate, Maria Lazar, also a state Court Appeals judge in Waukesha. Lazar, who announced her candidacy in October, has reported raising less than $400,000.
Taylor was appointed to the Dane County Circuit Court in 2020 and elected to District IV of the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, which covers 24 counties in southwestern Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Democrats have dominated fundraising in recent years, as the state party has built a successful national machine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, candidates on the Left have thrashed candidates on the Right in races for state Supreme Court in recent years, winning by more than ten points in each of the last three elections.
While state law caps donations from individuals to candidates for state Supreme Court at $20,000 per election cycle, political parties in Wisconsin are not capped and can receive unlimited amounts from wealthy donors and then give unlimited amounts to political candidates. The Republican-controlled state Legislature could place caps on donations to and from politcal parties, but has not.
So far, the 2026 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court is drawing much less attention than the race for the court last year, which saw more than $100 million raised and spent as the ideological majority of the court was at stake, and Elon Musk injected millions unsuccessfully trying to swing the election to the candidate on the political right.
Races for the Wisconsin Supreme Court are technically nonpartisan, but both major political parties back their preferred candidate. The open seat on the 7-justice state Supreme Court is being vacated by the retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative stalwart. If Democrats flip the seat, the political left will improve its majority on the court to 5-2. Republicans holding it will maintain the ideological balance of 4-3 in favor of the left-leaning justices.
The candidates are scheduled for one televised debate on Wednesday, March 25.
The general election is Tuesday, April 7. Eligible voters can register to vote on the day of the election by proving their residence and showing a government-issued ID to vote.
TOP DONORS TO JUDGE CHRIS TAYLOR
| NAME | CITY & STATE | NOTES | Philanthropist, wife of Sheldon Lubar |
| Democratic Party of Wisconsin | $260,000 | ||
| Clifford N Burnstein | New York, NY | Co-founder of music management company Q-Prime | $20,000 |
| Adelaide Gomer | Ithaca, NY | an heiress to the Park Communications and Duncan Hines fortunes | $20,000 |
| Sheldon Lubar | Milwaukee, WI | Founder and Chairman of Lubar & Co., a private investment firm | $20,000 |
| Marianne Lubar | River Hills, WI | Heir of Bell Laboratories, a pest control company, now owned by Berkshire Hathaway | $20,000 |
| David Lubar | Milwaukee, WI | President and CEO of Lubar & Co., son of Sheldon and Marianne | $20,000 |
| Joan Lubar | Milwaukee, WI | Nonprofit leader, daughter of Sheldon and Marianne | $20,000 |
| Susan Lubar-Solvang | Mequon, WI | Nonprofit leader, daughter of Sheldon and Marianne | $20,000 |
| Madeleine Lubar | Fox Point, WI | Nonprofit leader, wife of David Lubar | $20,000 |
| Alida Messinger | Saint Paul, MN | an heir to the Rockefeller family fortune | $20,000 |
| Bonnie Potter | New York, NY | President of the Lester Fund, an anti-poverty nonprofit | $20,000 |
| Lynn Schusterman | Tulsa, OK | Wife of late oil billionaire Charles Schusterman | $20,000 |
| Stacy Schusterman | Tulsa, OK | Daughter of late oil billionaire Charles Schusterman | $20,000 |
| Gwendolyn Sontheim | Rancho Santa Fe, CA | Heir of Cargill fortune (great-great-grandfather was founder of Cargill) | $20,000 |
| Scott Shenker | Berkeley, CA | Computer Science professor at UC Berkeley | $20,000 |
| Susan T Sroka | Somerset, WI | Retired | $20,000 |
| Chris Stolte | Seattle, WA | Founder of Tableau, the data visualization company | $20,000 |
| Pat Stryker | Fort Collins, CO | billionaire heiress to the Stryker Corporation, a medical technology company | $20,000 |
| WI Laborers District Council | DeForest, WI | construction workers union | $20,000 |
| Lynde B. Uihlein | Milwaukee, WI | Philanthropist and heiress to the Schlitz brewing fortune | $20,000 |
| William Connell | Lake Forest, IL | Former CFO of Duchossois Capital Management | $20,000 |
| John Miller | Fox Point, WI | Secretary & CEO of Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation | $20,000 |
| Patricia Taylor | Madison, WI | Chris Taylor’s mother, retired teacher, now deceased | $20,000 |
| Timothy Burns | Middleton, WI | Insurance lawyer, partner at Bruns Bair LLP | $20,000 |
| Beatrice Christensen | Madison, WI | Retired, wife of Laurits Christensen | $20,000 |
| Laurits R. Christensen | Madison, WI | Chairman-Emeritus at UC-Berkeley | $20,000 |
| Peggy Hedberg | Madison, WI | Former CEO of Renovar, an architectural company | $20,000 |
| Scott Feldman | Madison, WI | Retired lawyer, Chris Taylor’s father-in-law | $20,000 |
| Susan Crawford for Wisconsin | Madison, WI | Campaign committee of the Wisconsin Supreme Court justice | $20,000 |
| Justice PAC | Santa Ana, CA | Pro-democracy and pro-reproductive rights PAC | $18,000 |
| Operating Engineers 139 PAC | Pewaukee, WI | union for heavy equipment operators in construction industry | $18,000 |
| IBEW PAC Voluntary Fund | Washington, DC | union for electrical workers | $18,000 |
| UFCW Active Ballot Club General Fund | Washington, DC | Union for heavy equipment operators in construction industry | $18,000 |
| WI State Council of Carpenters | Madison, WI | carpenters union | $18,000 |
| MTI Voters (Madison Teachers Inc) | Madison, WI | Madison teachers union | $18,000 |
| WEAC PAC | Madison, WI | Wisconsin teachers union | $18,000 |
| WI Pipe Trades PAC | Madison, WI | Piping industry union | $18,000 |
| Deborah Kern | Fox Point, WI | Retail owner, philanthropist | $15,000 |
| Thomas Neujahr | Madison, WI | Founder of Urban Land Interests, a property management company | $12,500 |
| Mark Thomsen | Milwaukee, WI | Lawyer at Gingras, Thomsen, & Wachs | $10,745 |
| Gordon Johnson | Berlin, WI | Owner of Brain Injury Law Group | $10,500 |
| Marilynn Duker | Pikesville, MD | Co-Chair, Brightview Senior Living | $10,000 |
| Robert E Haselow | Edina, MI | Founder of Minneapolis Radiation Oncology | $10,000 |
| Joseph Kaempfer | McLean, VA | Founder and chairman of McArthurGlen, a British shopping mall operator | $10,000 |
| Peter Mensch | New York, NY | Co-founder of music management company Q-Prime | $10,000 |
| Lisa Minsky | New York, NY | Physician, philanthropist | $10,000 |
| Yaron Minsky | New York, NY | Co-head of Technology at Jane Street Capital, a private trading firm | $10,000 |
| Stuart Ellison | Chicago, IL | Corporate finance and development | $10,000 |
| Kurt Sroka | Somerset, WI | Retired, philanthropist | $10,000 |
| Karen Walsh | Madison, WI | Regent President, University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents | $10,000 |
| David Gruber | Fox Point, WI | Founder and CEO of Gruber Law Offices | $10,000 |
| Andrew Beck | New York City, NY | Former hedge fund D.E. Shaw Group’s investor relations head | $10,000 |
| Martin Schreiber | Milwaukee, WI | Former lieutenant governor and interim governor of Wisconsin | $10,000 |
| Joel Rogers | Madison, WI | Professor of law, political science, public affairs and sociology at UW-Madison | $10,000 |
| Linda Hughes | Madison, WI | Union for grocery workers and other related jobs | $10,000 |
| Chris Taylor | Madison, WI | donation to herself | $10,000 |
FREE TO READ. EXPENSIVE TO PRODUCE.
Creating our hard-hitting news takes a lot of time and money.
A story like this needs at least 8 hours to research, write and edit.
Please consider financially supporting The Badger Project to help us do more reporting in the future.
Categories: Investigations, Politics
