Before we dive into the nitty-gritty details of the outcomes of the 2025 General Election and what it means for our state and nation, I’d first like to extend a heartfelt thank you to everyone who voted, who encouraged others to vote, and who prayed. You have been a good steward of your citizenship, and we are incredibly grateful.

Many takeaways can be drawn from this election, and speculation about what went wrong and what went right will abound over the coming days and weeks. To simplify matters, we’ve broken down the results into three categories: the great, the good, the bad, and the ugly. Let’s start there.

The ugly news: From a conservative, Christian perspective, it’s fair to say this election didn’t go in our favor. Conservative state Supreme Court candidate Brad Schimel losing to liberal Susan Crawford allows the high court to maintain its 4-3 liberal majority. If history is any indicator, this court will hand down some decisions—and likely soon—on cases dealing with abortion, school choice, Act 10, religious freedom, our congressional district maps, and more.

The bad news: The statewide race for State Superintendent of Public Instruction unfortunately went to the liberal incumbent Jill Underly. This means there will be a continued push for woke indoctrination in our school systems, but rest assured that WFA will carry on fighting against any attempts to undermine parental rights or quality education in our state.

Now for the good news: The statewide referendum to put a photo ID requirement for voting in our state constitution passed with around a 60-40 margin. This signals that both conservatives and liberals agree voters should be required to prove who they are before they can cast a ballot. This is a win for election integrity in Wisconsin.

More good news: All three conservative candidates who ran for local school board positions won, maintaining conservative majorities in Waukesha, Cedarburg, and Watertown. As we remind people all the time, local government is the level of government that most directly impacts our lives and is the level of government we can most directly impact. Who wins these local races really does matter!

The great news: Through the generous support of friends like you, we were able to influence Christians to engage in this election in unprecedented ways. Wisconsin Family Action was able to influence over 200,000 Christian conservative voters who normally don’t vote in spring elections to cast a ballot. Our initial results showed that over 35,000 of these individuals voted early. We hope to share our final results with you in the coming weeks as election data is updated by the state. Wisconsin Family Council also made tremendous progress in this election. Our team called every evangelical church in Wisconsin that we are aware of to provide election resources. That’s almost 2,600 churches. Over 1,000 of them encouraged their congregation to honor God with their vote. Engagement by churches this election was on par with past presidential cycles. Thank you for making these essential projects possible.

Although conservative voter participation significantly increased compared to other state Supreme Court elections, it wasn’t enough to overcome the rise in liberal voter turnout. Brad Schimel had more votes than any Supreme Court candidate in state history other than Susan Crawford. He had over 400,000 more votes compared to the last time a conservative won a state Supreme Court seat in 2019. He had 200,000 more votes than the conservative candidate in the last state Supreme Court election in 2023 and over 40,000 more than the liberal Janet Protasiewicz, who won that year.

Unfortunately, liberals found a way to surpass these incredible strides from the conservative voter base. Susan Crawford was able to get a near-midterm level voter turnout. She had more votes than Scott Walker received in three of his four races for governor. According to Joe Handrick, an election expert in Wisconsin, Crawford was able to get up to 86% of the Kamala Harris vote in some municipalities.

Overall, we saw great improvement in getting Christian conservatives out to vote. However, our goal for future elections will be to figure out how to match the unprecedented numbers that the left turned out in this election.

As Christians, we need to remember that our hope should never be placed in a candidate, an election, or a political party. Our hope is solidly in the Lord Jesus Christ and the reality that He is in control. God is sovereign in all things. That truth needs to ground us in times like these. We can be disappointed, but we cannot despair as if all is lost and everything is hopeless. As believers, we are never without hope. We continue to pray, work hard, and do everything we can to bring about a Wisconsin where God is honored, life is cherished, families thrive, and religious freedom flourishes. Will you join us in praying for that future?