Andy Manis
Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate JoAnne Kloppenburg makes her concession speech after loosing to incumbent Rebecca Bradly in the April 5, 2016 election.
Supporters arrived at Judge JoAnne Kloppenburg’s campaign party at the Brink Lounge Tuesday night in high spirits, confident of victory. But as election returns for the Wisconsin Supreme Court race trickled in, the once cheerful crowd trickled out.
Only a handful of loyal supporters remained when Kloppenburg appeared shortly after 11 p.m. to concede the election to Justice Rebecca Bradley.
“We ran a campaign that was fair, truthful and respectful,” said Kloppenburg during her brief remarks. “We did all we set out to do except the coming-out-ahead part.”
Bradley said in a statement she was proud to have run a “positive campaign” based on her “judicial philosophy.” And she addressed Kloppenburg voters during her victory speech at the Crowne Plaza Hotel in Wauwatosa: “I’m your justice too. I will always follow the law regardless of how I feel about it.”
The unofficial tally has Bradley with 52% of the vote. She was appointed to the high court this fall by Gov. Scott Walker following the death of centrist Justice N. Patrick Crooks. Bradley captured 90,000 more votes than Kloppenburg to win the 10-year term. Fueled by the competitive presidential primary on both sides, it was one of the highest voter turnouts for a spring election in decades.
“In order to function...our judicial system must be free of partisan politics,” Kloppenburg said before leaving the stage. “Our courts are not arenas in which competing political agendas battle for the upper hand.”
However, a war over ideology and political dominance is exactly how Kloppenburg’s backers viewed the race. “I think it says an awful lot about propaganda,” said Larry Orr from Madison, who attended the campaign event. “It makes me really worried about the future”
“M-O-N-E-Y,” said one Kloppenburg supporter, who asked to remain anonymous, on why Bradley prevailed.
State Rep. Lisa Subeck (D-Madison) said outside groups spent millions on “deceptive” TV ads attacking Kloppenburg, and her candidate couldn’t “break through the noise.”
“The system is stacked against candidates who want to run an honest campaign,” Subeck said. “They painted a horrific picture of [Kloppenburg] that wasn’t even true.”
Outside groups spent more than twice what the candidates forked over for TV ads. The Wisconsin Alliance for Reform spent $3 million on behalf of Bradley. The Greater Wisconsin Committee, which supported Kloppenburg, spent just under $330,000. The result was attack ads that urged voters “to tell Judge Kloppenburg to protect children, not criminals” and to “ask Justice Bradley, with [her] extreme views, how can she be fair?”
UW-Madison political science professor Howard Schweber said this year’s Supreme Court race continues the trend of fierce partisanship defining supposedly independent judicial elections. It was no mystery, says Schweber, that Bradley represented the Walker wing of Wisconsin politics.
“Yet again, Gov. Walker’s administration narrowly survived an attempt to challenge their legitimacy at the polls,” says Schweber. “Nowadays...the judicial races have literally nothing to do with issues about the court and are treated as pure proxy votes for the parties.”
State Rep. Dianne Hesselbein (D-Middleton) says the state’s newly implemented voter ID law “played a huge role” in creating long lines at the polls and confusion on college campuses. “Students in Green Bay had to wait for over two hours,” said Hesselbein. “Some [students] had to choose whether to vote or attend class.”
More than 95,000 more ballots were cast in the GOP presidential primary than in the Democratic primary. Kloppenburg campaign manager Melissa Mulliken said the enthusiasm on the Republican side was a factor.
“Donald Trump and Ted Cruz may have decided this race,” Mulliken said. “I suspect [their supporters] were more likely to be Rebecca Bradley voters.”
This is the second time Kloppenburg has lost a State Supreme Court race, and it was more decisive than her last campaign, which Mulliken also ran. During the height of the 2011 Capitol protests over Act 10, incumbent Justice David Prosser beat Kloppenburg by just 7,000 voters.
