Important Wisconsin elections are coming up in 2025
Key state and local elections are just months away, including an open seat on the state Supreme Court.
The 2024 presidential, congressional, and Wisconsin legislative races will end with Election Day on Nov. 5. Other elections with major consequences for the future of the state are coming just a few months after.
On Feb. 18, 2025, Wisconsin will hold primaries for statewide and local elections. Those who advance will then face off in an April 1 general election.
Here are some of the key 2025 races.
Wisconsin Supreme Court
The election of Justice Janet Protasiewicz in 2023 gave progressives a 4-3 majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This new majority issued historic pro-democracy rulings striking down gerrymandered legislative maps and allowing local election officials to offer drop boxes for absentee ballots. It is currently considering a challenge to an 1849 statute that has been used in the past to prohibit most abortions. That majority could flip back to conservatives with the impending retirement of Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, who is not seeking reelection after three 10-year terms.
So far, two candidates have announced they will run for the seat: Brad Schimel, a Republican former Wisconsin attorney general who is now a judge on the Waukesha County Circuit Court, and Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford. Crawford is a defender of reproductive rights and workers’ rights; as attorney general, Schimel had a far-right record that included filing a lawsuit to repeal the Affordable Care Act, defending abortion restrictions, urging that teachers be allowed to carry guns in schools, and doing little to enforce environmental laws. Another conservative, Court of Appeals Judge Maria Lazar, has said she is also considering a run in the nonpartisan primary.
State Superintendent of Public Instruction
Wisconsin Superintendent of Public Instruction Jill Underly, a former teacher and school principal, is running for a second four-year term as the state’s top education official. Jeff Wright, the superintendent of the Sauk Prairie School District, is her first announced challenger.
The race is nonpartisan, but Underly won in 2021 with the backing of Wisconsin Democrats; Wright was a Democratic nominee for the Wisconsin State Assembly in 2018. No Republican-aligned candidates have announced yet that they will run for the position.
Court of Appeals and circuit courts
At least three of the seats on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals will be on the ballot in April 2025. Incumbent District II Judge Mark Gundrum, a former Republican state legislator appointed by Republican former Gov. Scott Walker; District III Judge Lisa Stark; and District IV Judge Jennifer Nashold, a former assistant attorney general under Democratic former Attorney General Jim Doyle, are all up for reelection to the 16-member appellate court.
Many of the state’s 261 circuit court judges will also be on the ballot.
Local governments
Several localities will choose leaders.
In Dane County, the winner of a Nov. 5, 2024, special election will serve out the remaining six months of former County Executive Joe Parisi’s term. On April 1, 2025, voters will select a county executive for a full four-year term.
