With support from across the country, state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor of Madison is outraising her opponent from the political Right nearly 10-1, 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 of Appeals judge in Waukesha. Lazar, who announced her candidacy in October, has reported raising less than $400,000.

Taylor was elected to the state Assembly in 2011 and reelected there until 2020, when Gov. Tony Evers appointed her to the Dane County Circuit Court. In 2023, she was elected, running unopposed, to the Wisconsin Court of Appeals, District IV, which covers 24 counties in southwestern Wisconsin, including Dane.

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 political parties, but has not.

So far, the 2026 race for Wisconsin Supreme Court is drawing much less attention – and money – 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	AMOUNT
Democratic Party of Wisconsin		Political parties in Wisconsin have no limits on how much they can raise and donate to candidates	$260,000
Clifford N Burnstein	New York, NY	Co-founder of music management company Q-Prime	$20,000
Adelaide Gomer	Ithaca, NY	An heir to 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	philanthropist, wife of Sheldon	$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	An heir to 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	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 grocery workers and other related jobs	$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	An heir of Bell Laboratories, a pest control company, now owned by Berkshire Hathaway	$10,000
Chris Taylor	Madison, WI	donation to herself	$10,000

The Badger Project is an independent, reader-supported news nonprofit in Wisconsin.