Wisconsin Special Election Could Decide 2024!

Janet Protasiewicz advances to general election for Supreme Court of Wisconsin.

Gov. Tony Evers of Wisconsin is counting on Democrats to come out in April. He believes the state's Republican Party went too far and it appears the special primaries that covered an open state senate seat and an open state supreme court seat went in the right direction.

A Republican lawmaker endorsed by Washed Up 45 was defeated Tuesday by a fellow state legislator in a three-way GOP primary for an open state senate seat representing Milwaukee’s northern suburbs.

State Rep. Dan Knodl of Germantown beat Washed Up 45-backed state Rep. Janel Brandtjen and Thienesville Village President Van Mobley in the 8th Senate District primary. He advances to face Democrat Jodi Habush Sinykin in the April 4 general election. The winner will get the seat.

Knodl was first elected to the Assembly in 2008. He served as assistant majority leader in 2011 and 2015 and as the majority caucus chair in 2017 and 2019.

His win ends Brandtjen’s attempt to revive a political career that came crashing down last fall when Assembly Republicans banned her from their caucus.

Brandtjen's peddled in conspiracy theories; openly called for overturning the results of the 2020 election; refuse to call Joe Biden, the President of the United States; backed the Republican challenger of a top leader and paid the price for it.

She pressured Speaker Robin Vos to do more to overturn the results and name Washed Up 45 the winner.

The rift between her and Vos grew and she threw her support behind Vos’ primary opponent last summer. Vos survived reelection and Assembly Republicans punished Brandtjen for her disloyalty by barring her from their caucus in November.

The 8th Senate District seat came open in November after longtime Republican incumbent Alberta Darling chose to retire. Evers scheduled a special election to fill the slot to coincide with the state’s spring Supreme Court election.

Protasiewicz will face off against Daniel Kelly, a far right agitator who refuses the 2020 election results.

A Republican victory in April would give Senate Republicans a two-thirds majority, which would be enough votes to override gubernatorial vetoes, although any such efforts would be symbolic at best since an override would also need a two-thirds vote in the Assembly, where Republicans are two seats short of the 66 needed.

But under the Wisconsin Constitution, a two-thirds Senate majority would give Republicans enough votes to convict “civil officers” in impeachment trials. The state constitution doesn’t define civil officers. The state Supreme Court has ruled that the term doesn’t include legislators, but the constitution makes specific mention of the governor as an impeachable officer.

Daniel Kelly, an ally of Washed Up 45 who advised Republicans on legal efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential race has advanced to the Wisconsin Supreme Court general election, putting him one step closer to a seat on the powerful bench.

Daniel Kelly is a former state Supreme Court justice with connections to a plan hatched by the former president's allies to reverse the 2020 election results in Wisconsin through the use of “fake electors.” He was one of two candidates to advance in Tuesday’s Supreme Court primary, according to projections by The Associated Press.

The other to move forward was liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz, a Milwaukee County circuit judge who was endorsed by the Democratic abortion rights group Emily’s List.

Protasiewicz and Kelly will face off in an April 4 general election that will determine political control of the court — and, with it, the future of many pivotal issues the court is likely to decide in the coming years, including abortion rights, elections and gerrymandering. The winner is elected to a 10-year term.

Although the court and its members are technically nonpartisan, conservatives hold a 4-3 majority. But with conservative Justice Patience Roggensack retiring, that majority hangs in the balance.

There has not been a liberal majority on the court in 15 years, and Democrats see the election as a prime opportunity to shift the balance.

Kelly was one of two conservative candidates in the primary election; the other, Jennifer Dorow, is a Waukesha County circuit judge best known in the state for having presiding over the criminal trial of Darrell Brooks, who was convicted last year of killing six people at a Waukesha Christmas parade in 2021 when he crashed his SUV into the crowd.