Voices of Supreme Court Voters

A team of University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee journalism students set out to interview younger and older voters in Wisconsin’s contentious state Supreme Court race.

What they found: The restoration of abortion in Wisconsin emerged as an overwhelmingly driving motivation for almost all younger voters, some of whom cast ballots for the first time.

For older voters, the motivations were a bit more mixed, with a couple citing crime but many citing abortion as well. Redistricting also motivated people to vote, whether younger or older, and when they did so, they cast ballots for Janet Protasiewicz, who was perceived as the liberal candidate in the race.

Voters were united over one thing: they despised the barrage of negative political advertising. Yet they saw this technically non-partisan race through a partisan lens, choosing their favored candidate on the basis of their believes on contentious issues. Several voters were motivated to turn out by local school board races.

Wisconsin’s Supreme Court race ended with Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee judge, coming out on top over Kelly, the conservative, whose ads and messaging focused largely on crime, Protasiewicz’s sentencing history, and the need to follow the Constitution. In contrast, Protasiewicz made it clear that she supports abortion rights and believes the redistricting maps were “rigged.” Those stances broke through.

After months of campaigning and political advertising, Protasiewicz ended with 1,021,370 votes equating to 55% of the total vote leaving Kelly with 818,286 and 44% of the vote. This race broke records in both turnout and in spending.

Social media played a large part in Tuesday’s election as students learned information about the election through platforms like TikTok and Instagram.

Each student was assigned to interview an older voter and younger voter and to inquire in an open-ended manner which issues motivated their vote. Here are those interviews.

Motivated by abortion and a school board race

Eric Rutowski is a 53-year-old art instructor at Mukwonago High School living in Hales Corners, a town just outside of Milwaukee. A 3^rd generation Wisconsinite and son of a Vietnam veteran, it’s usually a 50/50 shot voting in a spring election for Rutowski, but he pointed to the stakes of the race as a reason why he could not sit this one out.

“I voted for Janet Protasiewicz because I believe that it’s the right of a woman to choose if they want to have a child or not,” said Rutowski. “It’s the right of the person who has that baby growing inside of them.”

Rutowski was surprised at the amount of negative political advertisements that he was seeing on television and the lack of advertisements highlighting positive aspects about the candidates.

“It’s unreal the amount of money being spent on a state Supreme Court race and the amount of negative ads that are put out as opposed to ads that explain what the person’s platform or beliefs are,” Rutowski said.

While the amount of negative commercials was surprising to Rutowski, he understood that the importance and gravity of the race was likely responsible for it.

“It also seems like there’s a lot more ads because apparently this Supreme Court race is an important one across the nation because it’s setting some sort of precedent,” Rutowski said. “No matter what, this race is an important one.”

The local school board race in the City of Hales Corners was another big reason why Rutowski came out to vote.

“It seems like there is a big conservative group who I feel are trying to take over school boards and enact their own agenda into the public school system,” said Rutowski. “You can see a lot of collective advertising for school board members, like if you vote for one then you should vote for these other two because they also in alignment with this other candidate.”

Rutowski says this is something that he has never seen before in school board races.

“Before everyone stood on their own merits and now it seems very political and this ‘You’re with us or against us’ mentality,” said Rutowski. “Now you might see two or three people running together, whereas before everyone would run individually. There were people who would get along, but now you see signs that have three different names of them of people running for school boards.”

The politicization of the school board can already be felt, said Rutowski.

“These races used to be a lot more individualized, now it feel like the mentality is we want to get numbers for the majority vote on the school board so we can do what we want to do as opposed to each person being an individual and feeling differently and the school board works it out as a group,” Rutowski said.

-Juan Gerardo Escutia-Arreola

Hales Corners School Board race drove vote

Collin Bennett is a 23-year-old service advisor at Hiller Ford who has lived in Hales Corners, Wisconsin his whole life until recently when he moved to Milwaukee last year. Bennett wasn’t really that invested in this election and says he voted because he’s always voted in elections ever since he was 18.

“Voting’s just kind of a normal thing to do,” Bennett said. “My mom, Mary Bennett, is a Village Trustee in the city of Hales Corners, but I’d probably vote regardless even if she wasn’t, but she definitely reminds me, in fact I got a text earlier today from my mom asking me if I had voted.”

Bennett said that the issue of abortion didn’t really impact his vote despite the state Supreme Court race seemingly revolving around the issue.

“I voted a certain way but it wasn’t like particularly the reason I went out or nothing,” Bennett said. “I’m particularly against it, the whole Roe v. Wade thing getting overturned is interesting, seeing how it opens it up to states, and it becoming a state issue. With Wisconsin not really having laws or anything for it just restrictions, it’s kind of something where it’s not exactly voting on the actual legislation it’s just opening it up to be talked about essentially.”

The constant bombardment of negative political advertisements from both state supreme court candidates was something that left Bennett annoyed and upset with the whole race.

“I am not a huge fan of how every single ad is super negative,” Bennett said. “I’ve seen ads that basically say like, both people on the ballot want to kill your kids or let rapists out of prison. You always see all the negative stuff, but you rarely see anything from the candidates that tells you why you should vote for them, instead its usually this is why you should not vote for the other person. Especially in the week leading up to the election it just seems like there is just nonstop ads for it and at that point when there’s so many ads, I just stop listening to them to be completely honest.”

Bennett pointed out that the strictly negative ads seem to be a product of more local elections in recent years and that the trend is less noticeable in federal elections.

“It seems like lately in the past couple of years it just seems like that’s how all the races are,” Bennett said. “When they’re federal elections, it seems like it’s not as much the case. You still see some ads telling you why you should vote for this person or what their plans are, but it seems like the more local and state elections get really nasty and all the ads are just really negative.”

If there was one driving force in casting his ballot this spring, Bennett said it had to do with the local school board election in his hometown of Hales Corners due to the current superintendent, Lisa Olsen, who became superintendent of Whitnall School District in 2016.

“The superintendent for Whitnall School District sucks, I think she’s terrible,” Bennett said. “She doesn’t seem to care at all about the community itself, she’s from somewhere else and she’s been an administrator at several different schools, and it seems like since she’s had the job she’s trying to close of discussion to the public as much as possible.”

In particular, Bennett says the suppression of speech from the public in school board meetings at the school district is his main concern.

“Before in school board meetings, you would be allowed to get up at meetings and say what you wanted, but she’s completely shut it down,” Bennett said. “If you want to talk about something it must be sent in like a month in advance and if you want to get it on the agenda.  It just seems like a lot of restrictions and red tape that you have to go through just you can get any issue talked about. It seems like she’s just trying to run stuff herself and have her pawns and people she convinces to get on the school board so they can just run stuff without any public input, so I just voted for people who were opposed to her agenda.”

-Juan Gerardo Escutia-Arreola

‘Generation Z’

Generation Z continues to come out to the polls.

Over two years have gone by since the 2020 presidential election that saw strong turn out from the youngest generation of eligible voters, and after Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election, young voters continue to turn out.

“I just think it’s really important to set the standard for the generation that’s coming after us,” said University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee student Nathan Brown, 21. “It was really inspiring that the first election I could vote in was so important and really opened my eyes to the why we need to vote, even in smaller elections.”

The trend of young voters coming out to support Democratic candidates continued after re-electing Gov. Tony Evers in 2022.

“I felt disrespected by the older generation,” said Brown. “They really think all we do is post on social media and won’t actually go out and vote. Well, I think they know were serious about our beliefs now.”

The turning point can almost be singled out as early 2022 when abortion was once again banned in Wisconsin like many other states in the U.S. Abortion was still one of the main issues voters cared about most at the polls.

-Miles Verban

An age gap

Government elections are essential in our society by igniting the necessary dialogues among elected officials, governing bodies, and citizens. However, stark contrasts are found when comparing the political perspectives of older voters to those of the younger generation of voters.

A younger generation voter Colton Sanger, 22, and an older generation voter Anne La Chapelle, 52, provided some insight into their views of the two candidates and how they determined their preferred candidate.

Beginning the conversation with the younger perspective of Sanger, when asked about what issue he cared about most in this election, he mentioned abortion being the leading factor.

“It would have to be abortion; it is such an important issue,” said Sanger.

In contrast, the response from the older generation voter Anne La Chapelle was more particular and focused on the crime.

“Issues are crime – holding violent offenders accountable through charges and prosecution,” said La Chapelle. “Election integrity – ensuring voting laws get upheld and enforced to maintain the integrity of the electoral process.”

With an age gap of 30 years, it is interesting to see the difference in prioritization of specific issues over others. 

Regarding abortion, 52-year-old La Chapelle did not share the same sentiment as the 22-year-old Sanger.

When asked whether abortion influenced her vote or not, she had this to say.

“No, abortion was not a factor,” said La Chapelle. “I think the individual states should decide and can see both viewpoints on this issue.”

Whereas in the case of Sanger, it ultimately decided where his vote went.

“It was the leading factor in whom I voted for,” he said. “I strongly believe that women should have the right to get an abortion.”

Although it is a controversial question to ask someone, the question of whom they voted for was eventually eased into, which both La Chapelle and Sanger happily agreed to disclose.

First, looking at the younger vote from Sanger, it is evident in his vote that, as previously stated, abortion was a driving factor.

“I voted for Janet Protasiewicz,” said Sanger.

This vote aligns with an abortion-centered focus, given that Democratic nominee Janet Protasewicz put abortion at the center of her campaign.

Shifting to La Chapelle’s vote, her previous answers align with the proposed policies from Republican nominee Dan Kelly.

“I voted for Kelly,” said La Chapelle.

In order to get an understanding of the opposing campaign’s efforts and effectiveness through the media, La Chapelle and Sanger detailed their impressions.

What stood out the most about this race was where the two began their reviews of the opposing campaigns.

Sanger emphasized his surprise at the lack of endorsements from both sides, while also mentioning the initiative he took by doing independent research.

“Honestly, I was surprised at the lack of endorsement from both sides,” said Sanger. 

Compared to Sanger’s answer, La Chapelle expressed her displeasure with the constant smearing of character and aggressive tactics.

“The campaign ads were extremely negative with excessive mudslinging back and forth,” she said. “The candidates spoke more about their opponent’s negative record than their platform.” 

The two voters gave vastly different responses when asked where they had received their information on the Wisconsin Supreme Court election.

“I ended up having to do much independent research to come to a final educated decision,” said Sanger.

In La Chapelle’s case, she got much of her information from major news outlets and social media.

“Mostly TV ads, some TV news reports, and social media,” said La Chapelle.

The final segment of our conversations ended with their familiarity with voting and Supreme Court voting.

La Chapelle noted that she has consistently voted, whereas Sanger was a first-time voter.

“Yes, I am a regular voter,” said La Chapelle. “I have probably voted in 90 percent of all elections and Supreme Court races.”

“No, typically, I have not been one to head out to the polls and vote,” said Sanger. “This was my first time voting in a Supreme Court race.”

As one could expect, the older 52-year-old La Chapelle holds much more voting experience than the younger 22-year-old Sanger.

Given these vastly different responses and perspectives between a 22-year-old and a 52-year-old voter, one may think that a generational difference exists regarding voting and political policies.

-Dawson Carrell

Interested in the ‘restoration of abortion rights’

The Wisconsin Spring Election took place on April 4 2023, and both the Supreme Court and abortion rights were on the table; voters in the Milwaukee community expressed their opinions on what this election means to them.

Mary Bonfiglio, a 64-year-old entrepreneur and cosmetologist, said she voted in this election to help elect a judge who will restore the balance in Wisconsin to get a healthier Democratic state.

“This election is important to me since I’m interested in the restoration of abortion rights,” said Bonfiglio.

Bonfiglio also said she was interested in creating a better balance in the state of Wisconsin in regard to redistricting, and ensuring equality when it comes to voting rights.

“The money that’s spent on them and the campaigns are outrageous,” She said, referring to TV attack ads. “Some TV ads have been inappropriate for daytime TV when children might be watching.”

Bonfiglio says she mostly tries to ignore the ads and the misinformation and disinformation that is associated with them.

-Sian de Beer

Got information from TikTok and Instagram

Bianca Barraud, a 22-year-old Social Work major living on campus in the Sandburg Residence Hall, said she was worried not as many people would come out to vote on Tuesday due to the rainstorms. However, according to Bianca, if someone lives in Sandburg Hall, they’re able to vote in the Student Union Concourse.

“I’m voting today because women’s reproductive rights are on the line,” says Barraud.

She says she supports abortion because it’s a vital part of women’s healthcare.

“Whether it’s for accidental purposes, rape, incest or miscarriages,” says Barraud, “it’s an infringement on our bodily autonomy rights to take that away.

When asked about where she got her information about this election, Bianca said for a lot of it she did her own research using online media outlets. However, she also says she got her information from a lot of social media such as TikTok and Instagram.

-Sian de Beer

One voter believed Protasiewicz ‘fair and impartial’ but another felt Kelly upheld the ‘rule of law’

Despite the political significance of the race, many voters say that their decision was based more on the individual merits of the candidates than on their political affiliations.

“I supported Janet Protasiewicz because I believe she is a fair and impartial judge who will uphold the law and protect the rights of all Wisconsinites,” said Walaa Alajmi, a UW-Milwaukee student. “I don’t care if she’s a liberal or a conservative – I just want a judge who will do the right thing.”

Others, however, say that the ideological divide between the candidates was impossible to ignore. “I supported Dan Kelly because I believe in conservative values and the importance of upholding the rule of law,” said Roaa Al Mushaifri, a Marquette student. “I think that Janet Protasiewicz would have been too liberal for the court, and I’m concerned about what this means for the future of Wisconsin.”

Both sides accused each other of using negative campaigning during the election, which was not without controversy. Kelly in particular came under fire for his associations with outside interest groups that spent millions of dollars endorsing his campaign. Protasiewicz, on the other hand, came under fire for her alleged liberal bias as well as her backing of progressive policies.

The election of Janet Protasiewicz as a progressive voice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court was seen as a major victory for the state’s progressive movement. The Wisconsin Supreme Court has long been a battleground for political and ideological battles, and the addition of Protasiewicz will likely tilt the balance of power in favor of progressive causes.

However, some conservatives worry that the judiciary is becoming overly politicized and that rulings are being made based more on personal ideologies than on the law. The contentious ruling in the presidential election of 2020 case, which was heard by the Wisconsin Supreme Court, brought this issue to light.

In his concession speech, Kelly expressed his gratitude to those who supported him, stating, “I want to start out by just telling you my deepest gratitude, for everything that you’ve done. It is lovely to see all of you, and it’s lovely to see all of you behind the camera all across this beautiful state of Wisconsin. I’ve traveled the state talking about the difference between the rule of law and the rule of Janet, how important it is to conserve our constitutional heritage, and why it’s so important we keep the Constitution strong because that’s what protects our liberties.”

During her victory speech, Protasiewicz acknowledged her supporters and shared her vision for the state’s supreme court, stating, “Over a year ago, I got into this race I made the decision because I saw that Wisconsinites were ready for common sense, fairness, and an impartial court. They were ready to put aside partisanship and extremism and to have a court that makes decisions based on the law, not on a political agenda.”

-Fatema Ahmed Abdullah Al

Interested in ‘reproductive rights,’ cash bail reform

April 4 was election day here in Milwaukee, and thousands of students gathered at the student at UW-Milwaukee’s ward to cast their votes for electoral officials. One of those voters was Isabella Wienke, who became a voter after being influenced by the 2016 elections.

“I think the different polarizing views between the two major candidates was a big one,” said Wienke. “And also, just being like a female myself, like my rights are important and also like the rights of my peers.”

Yesterday was Wineke’s second time voting in the primary election, and this primary election had a lot of important issues on the ballot like reproductive rights such as abortion. In June of 2022, the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe vs. Wade. LGBTQ+, interracial and reproductive rights were all important to Wineke.

Wineke noted that “reproductive rights” were on the ballot. “I think when it comes down to it, I think how politics play out and just like health care rates are going to be a huge one going forward. I’m also looking forward to seeing how like cash bail reform goes into play, especially in Wisconsin in the future,” Wineke said.

-Charmeka Wells

‘Not having control over my body really p*ssed me off’

Wisconsin voters have a new approach to voting.

“Not having control over my body really p*ssed me off,” said Nicole DeLio, 54, a Milwaukee resident. “I’m glad people are going out and voting to make sure we can make our own decisions again.”

Wisconsin just finished an election that in previous years might not have gotten as much attention as it has now because of one main issue: abortion.

The last three years in Wisconsin have shown that the new generation of voters hasn’t overlooked the importance of their votes. The ban on abortion in Wisconsin in 2022 has only given them an extra reason to go to the polls.

“When I was in high school voting was just a cool thing to say you could do,” said DeLio. “I really feel like the addition of the internet has allowed younger people to see how policies affect people outside their small circles to really see the impact of voting on different policies.”

-Miles Zerban

Focused on abortion rights

Marley Wozniak is a 22-year-old marketing major at UWM, who has lived in the Milwaukee area all her life. She is a consistent voter and has come to find her vote in local elections increasingly crucial.

“I feel like there’s a big importance in participating in democracy and having a say in what happens on a more local level,” said Wozniak, “especially in this election.”

Wozniak was influenced by those around her and got her information from online research and social media.

“I see a lot of people I look up to voting and sharing the importance of it, so I’d want to follow that lead,” she said. “I went online, I went to social media, I saw candidates’ campaign websites and views that they supported and watched interviews with the candidates.”

In the unusually partisan race between Protasiewicz and Kelly, Wozniak was most focused on the candidates’ stances on abortion.

“In this race, the issue that I was most focused on was abortion rights,” she said, “and the information out there just really emphasized the importance of voting and getting people to the polls.”

Another reason that Wozniak herself made it to the polls was to vote in her hometown’s school board election, another race she found highly important in her community.

-Maddie Heimsch

Concerned about crime

John Heimsch is a 54-year-old small business owner from Pewaukee. He is a longtime conservative voter but occasionally votes outside of his party. He found Tuesday’s Wisconsin Supreme Court election to be unusual and frustratingly hyper-partisan.

“The Supreme Court race should never be that political,” said Heimsch. “It was just brutal.”

Heimsch typically gets his election information from Twitter and from reading the Wall Street Journal. He also talks politics often with his friends. He felt that in this election, crime was a crucial issue.

“I was trying to choose a candidate that was serious about mitigating some of the crime that’s happening and sentencing criminals more appropriately,” said Heimsch.

He urged that weak sentencing in the legal system was putting community members at risk, an issue that worries him. More worrisome for him, however, is the politicization of the court.

“The Supreme Court was respected by everyone,” said Heimsch. “It’s supposed to be a group of people that interpret the law for the good of the country, not the good of a political party or a certain point of view.”

-Maddie Heimsch

Annoyed by ads, motivated by ‘reproductive and election rights’

Leading up to the election, voters expressed feelings of nervousness regarding the candidates along with determination to have their voice heard.

Riley Lumpkin, 23, said, “I wasn’t super confident in the person that I wanted to win because I knew it would be close.”

Lumpkin voted in both primaries and the general election but said the nerves were much different going to vote this time.

Amy Topel, 55, said she felt very determined because she wanted to help in some way and did a lot of canvassing, that she had never done before, but was still anxious about what the outcome would be.

When asked what it was like the canvas, Topel said, “It actually felt really good, for the most part. Every now and then, I would come across someone who was annoyed. But I was being directly sent to people’s houses who were likely to be progressive or Democratic voters, so I wasn’t talking to necessarily just anybody.” 

Topel said this made her feel like she was performing a service, adding something to the conversation or accomplishing something.

Topel said, “Every time I would finish, I would feel really energized and more hopeful about the outcome.”

Lumpkin and Topel were asked what they thought of the advertising leading up to the election and their overall impression of the spending.

Lumpkin said, “Insane, it was insane. Both were intense and there was a whole lot.”

Lumpkin added that the advertising for the Supreme Court and the other Wisconsin elections coinciding made it a lot.

Topel said, “You know I don’t watch much normal TV. Stuff would come up on YouTube and I saw a couple ads by Protasiewicz that I thought were funny on how to say her name and I liked those.”

However, Topel said, “I was watching a show on Hulu with my daughter, and they kept playing a Kelly ad where they kept talking about, oh this guy raped these children and this guy whatever, and she’s twelve and it was like what are they doing. So, I had to keep muting it worried that she was going to hear it and be freaked out by it.”

This Supreme Court race gained national attention and when asked why, both Lumpkin and Topel said that they think people recognized the importance of rights, being both reproductive rights and election rights.

Lumpkin said, “Reproductive rights have been a huge issue nationally ever since Roe v. Wade and so I think because that was a huge part of this election, I think that’s why it got a lot of attention nationally.”

While both Lumpkin and Topel believed in the same issues there was a clear distinction in which of the two issues they thought were the most important. For the older of the two, Amy, saw gerrymandering as the first issues that needs to be solved to protect reproductive rights.

While Riley, the younger, believed that reproductive rights should be the first focus of the new look Wisconsin Supreme Court. Whether this reflects the rest of the state is unclear, but the distinction between the two is interesting. 

Topel said, “People across the country recognized Wisconsin as a pivotable state in terms of the electoral votes and the national election.”

Topel emphasized this recognition of national importance by saying that she received texts by several friends across the country congratulating Wisconsin.

When asked if she thinks the scale of this election will become the norm for spring elections Lumpkin said, “I think if the issues are still big, if the issues are at that national level these smaller elections will continue to have this kind of turnout but if that’s not the case then no, I don’t think so.”

Lumpkin and Topel both voted in person and said they were excited to vote. They both enjoyed getting their “I Voted” sticker, exercising their civic duty and having their voices heard.

While it was nerves and excitement going into vote it was more of the same after the race was called.

Topel said, “It was very exciting, and I went to sleep happier last night for sure.”

Now that Protasiewicz has won, Lumpkin and Topel expect to see changes made to Wisconsin.

Topel said, “The first thing that I hope that they do is somebody comes up with something to address that [gerrymandering] through the supreme court because we have to make this a more representative democracy.”

Lumpkin said, “I hope that abortions become legal in Wisconsin, in all cases.”

-Brenden Kazukewicz

‘I’ve seen so many attack ads that I assumed it was the norm for these elections’

Jacob Trask is a 21-year-old communications student at Carthage College who says that abortion is what brought him out to vote in this election.

“I really don’t know much about politics, but I was shocked when Roe was overturned last year. It just didn’t seem fair.”

Jacob thinks that there is some hypocrisy amongst politicians when it comes to freedoms.

“Everything I hear about just all seems hypocritical. The same people who claim they care for the freedom of the people were really quick to turn their backs on the women of this country and take their rights away.”

Trask said that he recently learned that Supreme Court races in past years were not as politicized as this one.

“I would’ve never guessed that these races are usually fairly non-partisan. I’ve seen so many attack ads that I assumed it was the norm for these elections, but I guess that’s not the case. All the ads are cringe anyway, so I’m glad it’ll be done by tomorrow.”

-Cameron Knoll

An avid voter

Paul Rodriguez, is just your average 50-year-old man in Wisconsin. He works at the post office, he loves going to baseball games, he sends good morning text to his children, and Paul votes.

Rodriguez has always been an avid voter. He always talks about the importance of voting and why it’s not only a right to vote, but the people who have that right should vote because it helps keep our democracy fair. For this Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Jane Protasiewicz and Dan Kelly this is who he voted for and why.

“I voted for Jane Protasiewiez and why I voted for her was because her views aligned more with mine,” he said

When asked if abortion was a main factor into his reasoning this is what he had to say, “I would say that it was a reason for my voting, but it wasn’t the main reason on why I voted for her.”

-Dominic Rodriguez

Felt Protasiewicz was most open about her beliefs

Lucas Alamo is a local artist here in Milwaukee. He loves all type of art he does everything from ceramics, painting, drawing, but he found his true passion in creating his own clothing brand. As much as Lucas loves the art, he also is very involved with politics.

For this Supreme Court election, Lucas’ main focus was to get and understand both of the candidates’ perspective, because he hates political ads and finds them deceitful. For his research, he went on a couple of different websites and looked on what the candidates stances on different things were. For this Supreme Court election, he voted for Jane Protasiewiez because she was the most honest and most open about her stance and beliefs.

“ I voted for Jane Protasiewiez because I believe as a man I have no right to say what a woman does with her own body, and that includes abortion,” he said when asked who did you vote for and why.

Lucas also believes that people have a right to vote and take action we needed to, but he himself is still a regular, voter and votes whenever he can on election days.

-Dominic Rodrigue

‘Freedom of choice’

Whenever there is an election taking place, it is always a big deal as two candidates hope to beat their opponent in a non-partisan race for their respective state. There are many elections that take place in the U.S. but one that’s took place on Tuesday April 4 and that’s catching a lot of people’s eyes is the Supreme Court election between Janet Protasiewicz and Dan Kelly.

“I do think that freedom of choice is something that is important, I am not huge into that issue, but I do think that there should be freedom of choice when it comes to women’s health,” said UWM Junior Ben Blitz.

They each have their ad campaigns, and a lot of them target the other person on what they do wrong. Also not only is that election taking place, but the state Senate election is also taking place, and that’s between Jodi Habush Sinykin and Dan Knodl.

“The Supreme Court election, people were basically saying that this is one of the most important state Supreme Court elections, really in American history, it’s pretty pivotal for deciding the direction the core is going to go so I think it’s pretty important,” said Blitz.

The main issue that is being discussed in the Supreme Court justice is abortion that was put into place and the overturn of the Roe vs Wade.

“A bit, honestly if there were arguments that were flip flopped, it still probably wouldn’t have changed my vote,” said Blitz.

The ads were another thing that seemed very big because people get to see both sides when it comes to ads and so people get to see some extreme ads and vulgar for that matter from both sides of each person running for Supreme court, Says Blitz.

“They’re very aggressive, and I don’t remember a lot of supreme court races in Wisconsin, but this one has been very aggressive with the advertising and a lot of negative ads against both of them,” said Blitz. “It seems like there’s a lot of money, and I have heard there’s a lot of money being poured into this. It seems to be a really important race and it has been very aggressive.”

A lot of people end up getting their information from different sources whether it be the news, or media sites through word of mouth or even ads.

“I guess mostly from the news, google news I look at articles and word of mouth too,” said Blitz.

The race is so close that people don’t know what’s going to happen or who’s going to win because both candidates defend what they are putting out to the public.

“I think it’s probably going to be really close, like every Wisconsin, United States in general is very divided politically, it’s very partisan, it’s very deadlocked in that sense, and Wisconsin is more than average and so were one of those purpliest of purple states when it comes to these things,” said Blitz. “I do think if I had to predict, I do think Protasiewicz is probably going to win given the last Supreme Court election that Dan Kelly was in he lost pretty badly”, said Blitz. “If that’s anything to go on I think she’s probably going to win and beat him in this election.”

-Troy Johnson

‘Abortion brought me out to vote’

“I wouldn’t call myself too much of a political person, but I think some of the bigger issues like abortion brought me out to vote,” said UWM Junior Chris Grieb.

Abortion seemed to play the main key factor in people’s votes.

“I would say it did affect my vote,” said Grieb. “I don’t know too much about the candidates and their personal beliefs besides abortion, so I definitely think it’s important and that I am definitely going to keep an eye on.”

-Troy Johnson

A professor’s take

The night of the election for the Wisconsin Supreme Court seat resulted in a power shift.

As the polls closed and the election concluded, Democratic candidate Jane Protasiewicz beat Republican candidate Dan Kelly, allowing the Democrat to have the majority on the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

One issue of concern to voters: redistricting.

According to Harvard Law & Policy review, “Partisan gerrymandering claims rest on an instinct that groups with a certain level of political support should enjoy a commensurate rate level of political power and influence.”

“Now that Protasiewicz has won the election, I expect someone to bring a legal challenge to the current district maps under state law. By doing it that way, the legal case would potentially avoid any avenue for the U.S. Supreme Court to intervene in the case,” said UWM Professor Michael Mirer.

“A lot of the policies Republicans have enacted over the past 12 years have been aimed at shrinking state and city budgets; the biggest has been limiting the amount of financial support cities get from the state to fund operations,” said Mirer.

“The current leadership of the legislature appears to have significantly negative views of Milwaukee, which may be rooted in partisanship or other things,” said Mirer.

Mirer also discussed redistricting.

“It is an expectation that every district be relatively equal in population size so that people have equal representation. But the challenge is deciding who draws the districts. Politicians have generally been in charge of that, but giving politicians the chance to choose their voters has been too inviting to pass up,” said Mirer.

-Alexander Trunnell