Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates to square off in their only debate in the hotly contested race

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — Candidates in a race that will determine ideological control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court will square off Wednesday in their only scheduled debate before the April 1 election.

The contest, which has caught the attention of presidential adviser Elon Musk, will be a litmus test early in President Donald Trump’s term in a key presidential swing state. Control of the court is on the line as it faces cases over abortion and reproductive rights, the strength of public sector unions, voting rules and congressional district boundaries.

The race pits Waukesha County Circuit Judge Brad Schimel, a former Republican attorney general, against Dane County Circuit Judge Susan Crawford, who is backed by Democrats and is running in her first statewide race.

Here is a look at some of the key issues:

Abortion rights

Crawford is backed by Planned Parenthood and represented the group in a pair of abortion-related cases when she was an attorney in private practice. She supports abortion rights and has said the U.S. Supreme Court was wrong to overturn Roe v. Wade. Much of her campaign against Schimel has focused on his past opposition to abortion, including when he was attorney general.

Schimel, who is supported by anti-abortion groups, has said he believes that an 1849 state law banning abortions is still “valid” and that there is no right to an abortion under the state constitution. He was also criticized by Crawford and current justices on the court after he said the liberal majority was ” driven by their emotions ” on a pending abortion case.

Both candidates have repeatedly said their personal views on abortion would not affect how they would rule.

Union rights and the state's voter ID law

As an attorney, Crawford sued in an attempt to overturn the state’s law that effectively ended collective bargaining for public workers. That law, known as Act 10, was the centerpiece of former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s tenure and made Wisconsin the center of the national debate over union rights.

A Dane County judge last year ruled that the bulk of the law was unconstitutional, and an appeal of that ruling is expected to come before the state Supreme Court.

When Schimel was attorney general, he said he would defend Act 10 and opposed having its restrictions also applied to police and firefighter unions, which were exempt from the law.

Crawford also sued to overturn the state’s voter ID law, but lost. A measure on the April 1 ballot would enshrine that law in the state constitution — an attempt by Republicans to make it more difficult to undo.

Testing of sexual assault evidence

Whether Schimel did enough as attorney general to clear the state's backlog of untested sexual assault evidence has been a central attack from Crawford and her allies.

Schimel took more than two years to test about 4,000 kits sitting unanalyzed on police department and hospital shelves. He has said that the state Justice Department needed time to inventory the kits and struggled to find private labs to test them because labs were overwhelmed with untested kits from other states.

In 2014, the state Justice Department learned of about 6,800 sexual assault evidence kits that had not been tested. Wisconsin cleared its backlog of untested kits in 2019, the year after Schimel left office.

Both candidates say the other is weak on crime

Many of the television ads in the race have focused on specific cases Crawford and Schimel have handled as judges, with both sides claiming the other is weak on crime.

Schimel previously worked as the Waukesha County district attorney and has racked up endorsements from law enforcement officials, including a majority of the state’s county sheriffs, the Wisconsin Fraternal Order of Police and the Milwaukee Police Association.

Crawford worked as a prosecutor for the attorney general’s office under a Democrat and has the backing of the sheriffs of Milwaukee and Dane counties, as well as dozens of judges from around the state.

Control of the court attracts big donations

The winner will determine whether the court remains under majority control of liberal justices as it has since 2023, or whether it will flip back to conservative control as it had been for 15 years prior to that.

The race has become nationalized thanks to groups funded by Musk that have spent more than $8 million in support of Schimel. Crawford also has benefitted from donations from prominent national Democrats such as philanthropist George Soros and Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, but they haven’t kept pace with Musk’s spending.

Donald Trump Jr. and political activist Charlie Kirk plan to co-host a town hall on Monday in Wisconsin that's being billed as a get-out-the vote effort for Schimel.