Elections in Wisconsin
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State government General elections 1925 1995 2000 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 2025 2026 Gubernatorial elections 1848 1849 1851 1853 1855 1857 1859 1861 1863 1865 1867 1869 1871 1873 1875 1877 1879 1881 1884 1886 1888 1890 1892 1894 1896 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1914 1916 1918 1920 1922 1924 1926 1928 1930 1932 1934 1936 1938 1940 1942 1944 1946 1948 1950 1952 1954 1956 1958 1960 1962 1964 1966 1968 1970 1974 1978 1982 1986 1990 1994 1998 2002 2006 2010 2012 (recall) 2014 2018 2022 2026 Lieutenant Gubernatorial elections 1942 1968 2012 (recall) Secretary of State elections 1978 2014 2018 2022 2026 Attorney General elections 2014 2018 2022 Treasurer elections 2014 2022 Superintendent elections 1925 2009 2013 2017 2021 2025 State Senate elections 1934 1996 2008 2010 2011 (recall) 2012 (recall) 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 State Assembly elections 2008 2010 2012 2014 2016 2018 2020 2022 2024 2026 Supreme Court elections 1852 (3) 1855 1859 1860 sp. 1863 1865 1867 1868 sp. (2) 1869 1871 1873 1875 1877 (2) 1878 1879 1881 (2) 1883 1885 1887 1889 1891 1892 sp. 1893 1895 1897 1898 sp. 1899 1899 sp. 1901 1903 1904 1905 1906 1907 1908 sp. 1909 1911 1913 1914 1915 1916 1917 1919 1921 1922 sp. 1923 1924 1925 1926 1927 1929 1930 sp. 1931 1933 1934 1935 1936 1937 1939 1941 1943 1944 1945 1946 1947 1949 1950 sp. 1951 1952 sp. 1953 1954 1955 1956 1957 1958 1959 1961 1963 1964 1965 1966 1967 1968 1969 1970 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1989 1990 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1999 2000 2001 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 2011 2013 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2023 2025 2026 2027 2028 2029 2030 2033
Ballot measures 2006 Referendum 1 2025 Question 1
Green Bay Mayoral elections 1995 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Madison Mayoral elections 1874 1875 1876 1973 1997 sp. 1999 2003 2007 2011 2015 2019 2023
Milwaukee Mayoral elections 1898 1900 1902 1904 1906 1908 1910 1912 1996 2000 2004 2008 2012 2016 2020 2022 sp 2024

The 2020 Wisconsin Supreme Court election was held on April 7, 2020, to elect a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court for a ten-year term.

As more than two candidates filed to run, a nonpartisan primary was held on February 18, 2020. The election saw circuit court judge Jill Karofsky defeat incumbent justice Daniel Kelly, who had been appointed to the seat by Scott Walker following the resignation of David Prosser Jr. from the court

The general election took place during the initial surge of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and state Republicans' controversially opposed postponing the spring elections (a move largely seen as having designs of benefitting Kelly through depressed turnout). Karofsky's sizable win was regarded to be an upset victory, and was only the second instance since the 1960s in which an incumbent justice of the court was defeated. While the election was formally nonpartisan, its general election result was viewed as a win for the Democratic Party, while Kelly was a conservative backed by the Republican Party (and who had been endorsed by incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump, a Republican).

Justice Daniel Kelly was appointed to the seat by Governor Scott Walker (a Republican) in 2016 to fill the vacancy created by the retirement of David Prosser Jr..^[1]

While Prosser had won election to a full ten-year term in 2011 (and therefore the seat would not have been up for election until 2021 had a vacancy not occurred),^{[citation needed]} the vacancy resulted in the election for a new full term in the seat being advanced to 2020. Wisconsin's constitution stipulates that early elections full terms can be triggered by a vacancy. The constitution stipulates that it is impermissible for more than one seat to be up for election in the same year. Elections must be moved moved to an earlier year after a vacancy, but only if there is a more immediate year without a scheduled contest.^[2] All supreme court elections are held during the spring elections in early April. ^[3] Since there were was no supreme court election scheduled in 2020, but there were elections scheduled in each of the years between Prosser's retirement and then, the vacancy only advanced election for the seat by a mere year (allowing Kelly to occupy the seat as an appointed justice for more than three years).

• Daniel Kelly, attorney^[4]

• Michael B. Brennan, Judge of the United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit^[5]
• Andrew Brown, attorney^[6]
• Claude Covelli, attorney^[6]
• Mark Gundrum, Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge for the Second District^[5]
• Brian Hagedorn, Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge for the Second District^[5]
• Thomas Hruz, Wisconsin Court of Appeals judge for the Third District^[5]
• Randy R. Koschnick, former chief justice of the Third District circuit court (2013–2017)^[5]
• James A. Morrison, judge of the Marinette County Circuit (Branch 2)^[6]
• Ellen Nowak, former Secretary of the Wisconsin Department of Administration (2018–2019)^[5]
• Paul Scoptur, attorney^[5]
• Jim Troupis, former judge of the Dane County Circuit (Branch 3) (2015–2016)^[5]

• Jill Karofsky, judge of the Dane County Circuit Court (Branch 12)^[7]
• Daniel Kelly, incumbent justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court^[7]

• Edward A. Fallone, Marquette University law professor and candidate for Wisconsin Supreme Court in 2013^[8]

The election took place in the state's spring elections, which also included the state's presidential primaries. The outbreak of the COVID–19 pandemic in the United States occurred in the weeks prior to the spring election. Following the outbreak, several other states had delayed their presidential primaries and extended their vote-by-mail periods, since concerns were raised by health officials, poll workers, and voters that in-person voting at this early height of the pandemic would be unsafe for vulnerable individuals.^[10] There were calls for Wisconsin to act similarly, but state Republicans opposed this. It was widely believed that state Republicans' objections to postponing the primaries was to advantage Kelly in the court election; with Republicans believed to have hedged that having the election proceeded as-scheduled and without emergency accommodations would depress voter turnout (particularly among liberal-leaning and Democratic-leaning voters), and that a lower-turnout election would be to Prosser's advantage.^[11][12]

Wisconsin Governor Tony Evers (a Democrat) initially signed an executive order for the spring elections to be conducting exclusively by mail-in voting. However, this order was rejected by the Republican-controlled Wisconsin Legislature.^[13] In a ruling issued on April 2, U.S. District Court Judge William M. Conley refused to postpone the election, but extended the deadline for absentee voting to April 13 (ordering clerks not to release any election data before that date).^[14][15] However, on April 6, the Supreme Court of the United States overturned Conley's decision, meaning that all absentee ballots still had to be postmarked by "election day, Tuesday, April 7" even though it was still acceptable for the ballots to be received by the clerks as late as April 13.^[16][17] The Supreme Court of the United States "did not alter the provision in Conley's amended order which prohibits the reporting of results until April 13".^[18] On April 4, Governor Evers called a special session of the state legislature to be held on April 6 for the purposes of having them vote to postpone in-person voting. However, this special session ended within minutes of convening and without any action, thus forcing the primary to go on as planned.^[19] Despite having previously expressed the view that he lacked the power to postpone the elections by executive order,^[20] on April 6, Evers issued an executive order which, if enforced, would have postponed the April 7 elections until the tentative date of June 9.^[21][22] Republican leaders immediately announced that they would challenge the order in the Wisconsin Supreme Court.^[21] The Wisconsin Supreme Court ruled that Evers did not have the authority to postpone the elections, thus meaning that Evers' executive order was nullified, and that the elections would be held as scheduled on April 7.^[23] This was appealed to a federal court who sided with the governor, and that was appealed to the US Supreme Court, which on a 5–4 vote, upheld the state court's ruling.^[24]

Voting was somewhat chaotic, with people waiting in the rain for hours in some cases in masks and social distancing.^[25] However, by the time the election concluded, Milwaukee Election Commissioner Neil Albrecht stated that despite some of the problems, the in-person voting ran smoothly.^[26]

During the campaign, Karofsky criticized Kelly and other members of the court's conservative majority for majority opinions that she argued gave them the appearance of being beholden to special interests. She also criticized Kelly and other conservative justices for having made comments that she characterized as unbefitting of judges.^[27]

Kelly was backed by the state's Republican Party, and was endorsed by Republican incumbent U.S. President Donald Trump.^[28]

Karofsky's sizable win was regarded to be an immense upset victory. Several political pundits opined that rather than depress Democratic and liberal voter turnout, the highly-public maneuvering by state Republicans to prevent a postponement of the election had motivated Democrats to turn out for Karofsky.^[31][32] While the election was formally nonpartisan, the result of the general election was regarded as a victory for the Democratic Party, as the liberal Democratic Party-backed Karofsky defeated the conservative Republican Party-backed Daniel Kelly (who had carried the endorsement of President Trump).^[31][33] The outcome narrowed the court's conservative majority from 5–2 to 4–3. This was the first time since 2008 that an incumbent justice was unseated, and only only the second time since 1967.^[34]

This outcome differed from the preceding 2019 state supreme court election, in which a conservative candidate had narrowly prevailed over a liberal candidate for another of the court's seats . However, the outcome and vote share resembled the supreme court result of 2018 for despite the two elections having different levels of turnout. Similar to both 2020 and 2018, both of the two supreme court elections to be held since (2023 and 2025) have also had results in which a liberal candidate has defeated a conservative candidate by a vote share of roughly 55% to 45%, despite there being variance in overall turnout between the four elections.^[35]