Schimming: Supreme Court race was disappointing, but Trump still president

Chair Brian Schimming says the state GOP did things in the April election it normally doesn’t, from transferring $9.5 million to Brad Schimel’s state Supreme Court campaign to keeping staffers on from the fall election to hit the ground running for the spring race.

It wasn’t nearly enough, as Dane County Judge Susan Crawford beat Schimel by 10 points, identical to the same winning margin for the liberal candidate in the 2023 state Supreme Court race.

“But as I always tell people, as frustrating as that was to me too, Donald Trump’s president this year, and, oh, by the way, he will be next year, the year after that, and the year after that,” Schimming told WisPolitics.

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The state GOP heads into its annual convention this weekend coming off a disappointing spring election, particularly after Trump won the state last fall. It was the latest in a string of off-year losses for the party since Trump first won the presidency in 2016; the Republican or conservative candidate has lost 15 of the last 19 contested statewide races.

This Supreme Court race was unlike other recent spring contests for the party, though. The state GOP transferred $9.5 million to Schimel’s campaign, a significant uptick over recent races.

Former Justice Daniel Kelly declined to take direct transfers from the party, though the Wisconsin GOP did $857,299 in in-kind contributions for his 2023 campaign and $327,000 in his unsuccessful 2020 bid to retain his seat on the court, according to the state’s campaign finance database. 

By comparison, the state Dem Party transferred $11.4 million to Crawford’s campaign this spring and pitched in $10 million to help Janet Protasiewicz in 2023 as she flipped control of the court in liberals’ favor for the first time in 15 years. The party also helped liberal Jill Karofsky with nearly $1.4 million as she beat Kelly in 2020.

The GOP last month ordered a postmortem of the spring race, with Treasurer John Leiber leading the effort. Schimming said he’s got an idea of some challenges Schimel faced in the April election, including a shift in the spring electorate in recent years that has given liberals an edge in spring races. 

But he wants to “make absolutely sure we know what happened, and not go on the latest theory.”

“The reason I wanted to put this commission together is not just to assume what everybody’s been saying, but really to get the handle on what happened here,” Schimming said, adding he hopes to have the report wrapped up in the next six to eight weeks. “If that takes us a few weeks to do, I’m fine. It’s worth the time of going through the numbers, questioning assumptions, you know, on any side of it.”

The party last week announced the members who will serve on the commission Leiber is leading. They are: Terry Dittrich, the Waukesha County GOP chair and a member of the RNC; former state Rep. Amy Loudenbeck, of Clinton; Chris Goebel, chair of the Walworth County GOP; former state Rep. Angie Sapik, of Lake Nebagamon; Lindsay Clark, a member of the Neenah School Board; Katie Verzal, the 1st CD GOP vice chair; and Landis Holdorf, an aide to U.S. Rep. Tom Tiffany and a member of the Merrill Common Council.

Schimming, who was first elected chair in 2022 and was reelected to another two-year term in December, says he’s also taking a look at the party’s fundraising.

The Dem Party has regularly bested the Wisconsin GOP for dollars raised since Ben Wikler took over as chair in 2019. WisDems says the party has pulled in $206 million through its state and federal accounts under his watch.

The state Dem Party raised more than $32 million through its state account alone in 2024, compared to the $9.8 million the state GOP pulled in.

But over the first three months of 2025, the state GOP pulled in $12.4 million — bolstered by $3 million in donations from billionaire Elon Musk — while WisDems reported $12.1 million in receipts. 

At the same time, the state GOP’s pre-primary report listed just 14 individual donations of $125 or less. The state Dem Party had more than 500 such contributions, a sign of its superior small-dollar operation.

Schimming said when he became chair, the party was still running a fundraising call center out of its headquarters. He nixed that and contracted out the work to save money and try to be more efficient. He’s also looking at what the party’s finance staff should look like and acknowledged Republicans are at a disadvantage for small-dollar donors. Still, he argued that wasn’t unique to the state GOP, saying Kamala Harris outspent Donald Trump last fall, as did U.S. Sen. Tammy Baldwin, D-Madison, in her race with GOP businessman Eric Hovde.

“So this isn’t just a state party issue. There’s an atmospheric issue,” he said.

As Republicans meet in Rothschild this weekend, some are watching to see if activists air any grievances they have over a new code of conduct the party announced. Among other things, it allows the removal of local party officials, members of the executive committee or staff for actions such as sexually, verbally or physically harassing fellow Republicans.

The new bylaws laying out the process to remove offenders states that while the party supports the right of members to choose local leaders, those heading county and congressional district organizations “should be working in coordination to achieve the Republican Party of Wisconsin’s goals and mission.” 

Schimming downplayed any chance of friction over the new standards at the convention, saying the only blowback he’s seen on the rules is on social media.

“I have had almost no county chairs, and I see them all the time come up to me, but ‘Oh, my God, you got to get that thing changed,’” Schimming said. “I hear it in the echo chamber, but I don’t hear it on the road.”

Listen to the interview.