“I tried to warn people in 2023, and here is what I’m saying now: if Wisconsinites don’t pay attention to this race, history is going to repeat itself, and you’re going to have this court stay under Democrat control,” Scott Presler told Breitbart News in an exclusive phone interview.
With the retirement of liberal Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, conservatives view the race as a chance to win back the majority, while Democrats view the battle as a chance to push policy and redraw legislative maps that could ultimately lose Republicans two U.S. House seats and help the Democrats close in on the Republicans’ slim majority.
Presler, whose organization Early Vote Action works in swing states to register Republicans and encourage early voting, has been drawing attention to the highly consequential race online — all while working on the ground in states like Pennsylvania and New Jersey to register Republicans. The activist, who played a massive role in flipping Pennsylvania for President Donald Trump in 2024, plans on going to the Badger State for two weeks “working to win the Supreme Court election.”
“I just wanted to use my platform to bring attention,” he said.
The Wisconsin Supreme Court election is between former conservative Wisconsin Attorney General and Waukesha County Circuit Court Judge Brad Schimel and Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, who previously represented left-wing groups like Planned Parenthood as an attorney.
The 2025 Wisconsin Supreme Court race is expected to be even more expensive than the 2023 election, which shattered national spending records for a judicial contest at $56 million and brought in massive out-of-state spending. In Wisconsin, state Supreme Court justices serve ten-year terms. While the judicial race is nonpartisan, both sides of the political aisle are heavily invested in the results of the election.
“There is no party affiliation on the court, but we all can read in between the lines,” Presler said, calling Crawford a “radical, rabid leftist.”
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Presler said one of the largest ramifications of the race is if Crawford wins and Democrats are able to gerrymander the legislative districts to snag two U.S. House seats from Republicans. The seats in their crosshairs are currently held by Rep. Bryan Steil (R-WI) in the 1st Congressional District in southeast Wisconsin and Rep. Derrick Van Orden (R-WI) in the 3rd Congressional District in the western part of the battleground state.
Democrats’ view of the race as a pathway to power in D.C. is not mere speculation and has been touted openly. An email invitation obtained by Breitbart News to a briefing on Jan.13 with Democrat donors, Crawford, and Wisconsin Democrat Chairman Ben Wikler has a subject line that reads: “Chance to put two more House seats in play for 2026.” Aides of Reid Hoffman notably helped to organize the event, the New York Times reported. Hoffman, reportedly a past visitor to Epstein Island, later contributed to the race along with other left-wing billionaires.
“But winning this race could also result in Democrats being able to win two additional US House seats, half the seats needed to win control of the House in 2026,” the email reads.
A complaint has since been filed against Crawford over the event email, which was sent by a nonprofit that works to boost voter turnout called Focus for Democracy. Crawford and her campaign have denied any wrongdoing, while Republicans view the incident as evidence that she has made a “campaign promise to sell Van Orden and Steil congressional seats.” Crawford’s campaign has not returned Breitbart News’ previous requests for comment.
“It’s not just the Wisconsin Supreme Court,’ Presler said. “It’s potentially taking the House majority away from Republicans, therefore stalling President Trump and taking away his ability to govern and legislate.”
Presler, who is already planning for the next presidential election, said the results of the Wisconsin Supreme Court race could even have “2028 ramifications.”
“I’m already in the mode of working towards presumptive nominee presidential candidate JD Vance in 2028,” he said. “There is no stop to the work that we do, and so I am cognizant that these Supreme Court races are going to impact even the next presidential election.”
“[Gov. Tony] Evers (D) is up in 2026, so, hello, you have a Wisconsin governor’s race as well in just two years,” he added.
As far as Republican voter morale following Trump’s 312-electoral vote victory in November of 2024, Presler said he still sees a lot of enthusiasm and more excitement than before the state’s 2023 Supreme Court election.
“I always believe that victory begets victory. I think we have a much more likelihood of winning these off-year Supreme Court elections, in part, because of our victory in 2024,” he said.
“And the reason why I say that is if you look at 2023, what did people really have to be excited about? 2022 was an awful year. Kari Lake lost, we lost the governorship in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin — and Governor Evers was reelected. Morale was really low,” he said.
Trump’s 2024 victory was, notably, only the second time a Republican presidential candidate has won the state in nearly 40 years — with Trump securing the first win during his 2016 run. Both times, Trump saw a narrow margin of victory, although he has received increasingly more votes during all three of his presidential runs in the swing state. In 2016, Trump beat out Hillary Clinton 47.8 percent to 47 percent, 1,405,284 votes to 1,382,536. In 2020, Biden won the state by a slim margin, 49.4 percent to 48.8 percent, but Trump pulled in more votes for himself than in 2016 at 1,610,184. In 2024, Trump won Wisconsin over Kamala Harris, 49.6 percent to 48.7 percent, and secured more votes than in 2020 at 1,697,626.
WATCH – Scott Presler: Focus on Early Voting, Legal Ballot Harvesting, Voter Registration to Win in 2024
Video Source:Matt Perdie/ Breitbart News
“I would argue, going into the spring election and, just with what Donald Trump has achieved in three weeks in office, morale is high. And so therefore, this is a base-turnout election,” he said. “If we get Trump voters out, then Brad Schimel will be our next Supreme Court justice.”
On the state level, the Wisconsin Supreme Court is expected to hear several high-profile cases, including a challenge to an 1849 abortion restriction (which is currently on hold by the courts), and a lawsuit against Wisconsin Act 10, a law limiting collective bargaining for public sector employees passed in 2011 by Republican Gov. Scott Walker.
Election integrity is also of concern among conservatives like Presler. Soon after the election of Protasiewicz in 2023, the Wisconsin Supreme Court liberal majority notably undid a prohibition on ballot drop boxes in the state and prompted the Republican-controlled state legislature to redraw State Assembly and State Senate maps. The April ballot also includes a proposed amendment seeking to enshrine voter ID requirements into the state constitution.
In February, the liberal-leaning Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled 4-3 that a Republican Party official lacked standing to bring a lawsuit challenging the use of a mobile voting van in Racine in 2022 and dismissed the case. Republicans had argued that the van, which was purchased using grant money from a nonprofit backed by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, was used to boost turnout in a heavily Democratic area in violation state law, and that future use could lead to voter fraud.
The court did not rule on the merits of the case, meaning voting vans could be used again — and some city officials said they plan to use the van in April in light of the state Supreme Court’s decision.
Unsurprisingly, Democrats and their media allies came out of the gate framing the Wisconsin Supreme Court election as a referendum on abortion, much like every election since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade in 2022. When Roe v. Wade was struck down, Wisconsin’s 1849 abortion restriction went into effect, but was put on hold in December 2023 and is expected to come before the state’s high court later this year.
Crawford has declined to say how she would rule on the law, but she did say in an interview that the government should not regulate abortions, according to a New York Times article with the headline “One of 2025’s Biggest Battles Over Abortion Rights Has Already Begun.”
“I believe as a woman that I should be the one to make decisions about my own body and my health care, together with my doctors,” she said. “I trust other women to make those same decisions.”
Presler contended that Democrats’ approach is not in line with what the majority of Americans are actually concerned about and lauded Schimel’s emphasis on public safety and restoring impartiality to the state’s high court.
“I just think that in this age of information — thanks to people like Elon Musk who has really opened up a platform for free speech — people are understanding … our government with USAID is a really big issue. The border is a big issue. Inflation is a big issue. Having peace, not war, is a big issue. Deporting criminal illegal aliens who are in states like Wisconsin is a big issue,” Presler said. “And so therefore, I would argue that [with] abortion, the Democrats are going to try to make it their top number one priority like they did with Kamala, [but] ultimately, voters are sensing and feeling struggles that are much bigger and have a larger priority in their lives than abortion.”
Presler pointed to the election of gun control activist David Hogg as vice chairman of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) as proof Democrats are doubling down on their election strategies despite the results of 2024.
“David Hogg, who is a rabid anti-Second Amendment, and therefore anti-constitution individual — he is quoted as saying there is no right to own a gun. I mean, there is nothing that you could say that is more anti-constitutional when it’s our Second Amendment enshrined into the Constitution,” he said. “The Democrats elected him — they chose him, they voted for him, and they are doubling down. They are tripling down. It seems to me that they have learned nothing from losing the popular vote in 2024.”
“And actually, I celebrate this. I hope they continue to double down on their terrible policies and ideologies that allowed Donald Trump to win the popular vote in 2024,” he continued.
“When your enemy is making a mistake, let them,” he concluded.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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