Conservative Supreme Court Justice Rebecca Bradley announced she will not seek reelection in 2026, saying “the best path for me to rebuild the conservative movement and fight for liberty is not as a minority member of the Court.”
Bradley, elected in 2016, in April told WisPolitics she expected to seek a new term and would take the coming weeks to determine the best path to win after liberal Justice Susan Crawford was elected.
But she raised nothing over the first six months of the year as doubts emerged about her plans to run in 2026.
Her decision is a blow for conservatives, who have lost back-to-back Supreme Court elections by double digits.
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Liberals have now secured the majority until at least 2028.
“For years I have warned that under the control of judicial activists, the court will make itself more powerful than the legislature, more powerful than the governor,” Bradley said in a statement to WisPolitics. “That warning went unheeded, and Wisconsin has seen only the beginning of what is an alarming shift from thoughtful, principled judicial service toward bitter partisanship, personal attacks, and political gamesmanship that have no place in court. The conservative movement needs to take stock of its failures, identify the problem, and fix it.”
