The Court of Appeals Judge Maria Lazar has struggled to raise funds since she announced her candidacy for the state’s high court in October, and is being outraised by her opponent nearly 10-1.
By Gus Pirlot and Peter Cameron, THE BADGER PROJECT
State Appeals Court Judge Maria Lazar has reported raising less than $400,000 in her campaign to win a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, according to the Wisconsin Democracy campaign, which tracks political spending.
Her opponent, state Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor of Madison, has reported raising nearly $3.5 million since she announced her candidacy in May of 2025.
Lazar got into the race late, in October, after Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley, whose seat is up for reelection, announced she was withdrawing after initially saying she would run. Taylor announced her candidacy five months earlier, in May of 2025, and has been fundraising aggressively since then.
Before becoming a judge, Lazar worked for five years as an assistant attorney general for the Wisconsin Department of Justice in Madison. She then served as a Circuit Court judge in Waukesha and has spent the last three years on the Court of Appeals, District II, which covers most of southeastern Wisconsin.
Wisconsin Democrats have dominated fundraising in recent years, as the state party has built a successful national machine. Perhaps unsurprisingly, candidates from 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 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 MARIA LAZAR
| NAME | CITY & STATE | NOTES | AMOUNT |
| Diane Hendricks | Afton, WI | Billionaire owner and chairperson of ABC Supply | $20,000 |
| Tim Schmidt | West Bend, WI | USCCA Chairman, CEO of Delta Defense LLC, an insurance and support agency for the USCCA | $20,000 |
| Gerald Couri | Oconomowoc, WI | President of Couri Insurance Agency | $20,000 |
| Elizabeth Uihlein | Lake Bluff, IL | Owner of Uline and wife of Richard Uihlein | $20,000 |
| Stephen Kieffer | Princeton, WI | retired owner of Kieffer & Co, Inc, a business sign manufacturer | $20,000 |
| John Meier | Lahaina, HI | Retired, early employee of Apple and several tech startups | $20,000 |
| John M. Silseth | Brookfield, WI | Banking CEO | $10,000 |
| Patrick English | Milwaukee, WI | Executive Chairman of Fiduciary Management, Inc, an investment company | $10,000 |
| Fred M. Young | Racine, WI | Former president and CEO of Young Radiator, a vehicle radiator manufacturer | $10,000 |
| Eric Hovde | Madison, WI | CEO of Hovde Properties, former candidate for US Senate | $10,000 |
| Jodie Ann Mueller | Pewaukee, WI | Dental hygenist, wife of John Fleckenstein, owner of FLECK Tech LLC, a firearms manufacturer | $10,000 |
| John E. Shaffer | Chicago, IL | Founder of HSA Commercial, a national real estate firm | $10,000 |
| Matthew Neumann | Hartland, WI | CEO of Nuemann Companies, a real estate developer | $10,000 |
| Ronald Wenger | Madison, WI | Retired surgeon | $10,000 |
| Nancy Toll | Franklin, WI | Retired | $10,000 |
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