#1. Democratic Gov. Tony Evers won a second four-year term, defeating Republican construction executive Tim Michels. The win also meant a new lieutenant governor, Rep. Sara Rodriquez, will be sworn in with Evers. He will still wield the veto pen used 126 times over the last two years to kill bills passed by Republican legislators.
#2. Republican U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson won a third six-year term, holding off Democratic Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes and again proving the ticket-splitting penchant of Wisconsin voters. Johnson and third-party backers charged Barnes with being “soft on crime” and used past statements by the progressive Democrat against him.
Johnson won despite controversies about COVID-19 vaccines, his promotion of an alternate slate of Electoral College voters that favored President Donald Trump in January 2021, and a pledge to not seek a third term. The win ended — for now — his worries about vote-count irregularities.
#3. The U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade allowed states to regulate abortions, triggering an 1849 Wisconsin law prohibiting the procedure except when necessary to save the woman’s life and closing clinics that performed abortions.
Democrats Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul made restoring a woman’s right to choose a central issue of their winning campaigns. The governor authorized Kaul to sue to try and void the 1849 ban. That suit is pending.
#4. Several factors gave Evers and Republicans who control the Legislature a record $6.5 billion surplus to spend in the next budget. Evers promised to offer a $600 million tax cut in the 2023-25 budget he will propose in mid-February, but Republicans want a much bigger cut. The record surplus resulted partly from higher federal Medicaid health-care reimbursements and pandemic aid.
#5. In April, the Wisconsin Supreme Court ordered legislators to run in districts drawn by Republicans for the next 10 years. The court, which in March had chosen maps submitted by Evers, split 4-3 with Justice Brian Hagedorn breaking the tie.
#6. Republicans picked up one state Senate seat in the Nov. 8 elections, giving them — temporarily — a two-thirds majority in that 33-member chamber. Whether they keep that two-thirds majority depends on the April special election in the Milwaukee-area Senate seat vacant because of the retirement of Sen. Alberta Darling. Republicans also gained seats in the 99-member Assembly, although they don’t have the two-thirds majority needed to override vetoes.
#7. Challenges to Assembly Speaker Robin Vos by Donald Trump and former Supreme Court Justice Michael Gableman, who Vos hired and then fired to investigate the 2020 election, failed. Vos narrowly survived a primary challenge and a write-in campaign by Trump-endorsed Adam Steen but easily won a 10th term.
Another Vos opponent, Republican Rep. Janel Brandtjen, easily won reelection but was removed by Vos as chair of the Assembly elections committee. Brandtjen, who has called for decertification of the 2020 presidential election, is one of several Republicans running to fill Darling's Senate seat in the Feb. 21 primary.
#8. The UW System got two new leaders. Law firm CEO Jay O. Rothman was named UW System president, after former Gov. Tommy G. Thompson ended two years as interim president. UCLA Law School Dean Jennifer L. Mnookin became UW-Madison chancellor.
Republican Sen. Steve Nass criticized Mnookin, saying she “advocated for the forced indoctrination of college students with critical race theory.”
#9. Republican Party leaders began to reject former President Donald Trump’s 2024 presidential bid.
At a WisPolitics forum, Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu said some voters told him they voted against Michels because Trump had endorsed him. And, after being elected for a record sixth term as speaker, Vos said, “We have to be smart enough to say, 'I want to win.’”
#10.The Wisconsin Economic Development Corporation committed $228 million in federal pandemic recovery aid for two programs. The agency, with the approval of Evers, budgeted $100 million for $10,000 grants to individual small businesses and $128 million for “work incentive” grants that aid and train workers.
In December, Vos told a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reporter that WEDC is an “abject failure” and an audit criticized the Evers Administration’s failure to fully disclose details of how it spent federal Covid 19 aid.
Honorable mentions: Republican Derrick Van Orden was elected in southwest Wisconsin’s 3rd House District, after Democrat Ron Kind retired after 26 years in the House. The state Supreme Court ruled that Evers appointees to boards and commissions can’t assume those roles until confirmed by the state Senate.
[Editor's note: This article has been updated to reflect that the Republican majority in the state Senate might change depending on who is elected to the Milwaukee-area seat recently vacated by Alberta Darling.]
Steven Walters started covering the Capitol in 1988. Contact him at stevenscotwalters@gmail.com.
