The Election Day loss by the conservative candidate for Wisconsin’s Supreme Court was a bit of a shocker. The loss wasn’t a big surprise, but the margin was. On a quick analysis, there are probably three considerations: time, money, and voters.

Appeals Court Judge Maria S. Lazar, the conservative candidate, officially entered the race last October 1st which was a few weeks after Justice Rebecca Bradley announced her intentions to retire in 2026. By that time, Appeals Court Judge Chris Taylor, a liberal former legislator from Madison, had been actively campaigning for four months. That campaign time gap was hard to make up. The next Supreme Court election is in 2027 and it would appear that the candidates need to be planning now and actively campaigning more than six months before Election Day.

Campaign funding is another consideration. A couple of sources reported that the liberal Judge Taylor had a nine-to-one campaign funds advantage over the conservative Judge Lazar. Campaign reports I saw showed a $260,000 donation from the Democrat Party of Wisconsin for Judge Taylor while the rest of the donations for either candidate were $20,000 or less. Another difference is that it appeared many of Taylor’s contributions came from outside of Wisconsin while Judge Lazar’s contributions were primarily from within Wisconsin.

The third consideration is the number of votes, or more properly, the number of missing voters! In 2024, President Trump gathered almost 1.7 million votes in Wisconsin. In 2025 in the previous Supreme Court election the conservative Judge Brad Schimel gathered just over 1 million votes in a losing effort. In this election Judge Lazar gathered just 600,000 votes in a race she lost 60% to 40%. The obvious question is “Where are the other 1 million voters that voted for President Trump just 17 months ago?”

My final two comments on this election contest are “I hope Wisconsin survives the over dominance of the left-leaning liberal ladies that appear to want to legislate while sitting on the Supreme Court” and “I hope we haven’t seen the end of Judge Maria S. Lazar”. She deserves a big thanks for making a gallant effort against such odds.

The other significant election news concerns the 75 Wisconsin school districts that went to referendum to gather more tax money from their citizens. One report stated that more than 60% of the referenda passed so simple math indicates that probably over 35% failed. In the Coulee Region, the Sparta Area School District had an operational referendum for $1.8 million a year for three years. With just over 4,000 votes cast the effort failed 47% to 53%.

Those that passed are, in my opinion, just kicking the can down the road. The problem is bigger than the 75 schools that went to referendum and education economics must be a topic of discussion for the fall elections for Governor, Lieutenant Governor, and all state and federal legislators. Earlier this year Coulee Conservatives had a workshop on issues that matter and the top issue was “Property Taxes” and now look at the school districts referenda for starters!

While we need to consider “lessons learned” from the recent election season, we also need to quickly look to November for the conservative Republican candidates.

There are already two candidates that have dropped out of the Republican contest for Governor leaving Congressman Tom Tiffany as the projected candidate for the fall election. Then there are three candidates for Lieutenant Governor to consider. If you look at Rep. Tiffany’s strengths and weaknesses, then David Varnam is the right choice. Varnam is a former three term Mayor of Lancaster with other experiences that bring strength to a Tiffany-Varnam ticket unmatched by the other candidates. State Treasurer John Leiber is running unopposed for re-election. Fond du Lac District Attorney Eric Toney is running unopposed to challenge the incumbent Attorney General. (This will be a rematch from 2022.) There are four Republican candidates for Secretary of State and while it is early in the campaign season, Dodge County beef farmer, auctioneer and town chairman Nate Pollnow appears to be the best choice to win and to do a good job when elected.

Considering the Members of Congress, Wisconsin does not have a US Senate race this year. Congressman Derrick Van Orden (R-3rd) is running unopposed in the primary and is certainly deserving of re-election. The 7th Congressional District which reaches into the Coulee Region with a couple of towns each in Jackson, Juneau, and Monroe Counties has several candidates and it is too soon to pick the best candidate.

The August primary seems a long way off, and the November Election Day is even further into the future, but it is high time to get informed and get involved! We not only have to select and elect the best candidates, but we have to find some of those million Trump voters that didn’t bother to vote in the recent April election! They and they alone cost the conservative candidate a victory and the people of Wisconsin another conservative on the Supreme Court.