James Edward Doyle Jr. is an American attorney and politician who served as the 44th governor of Wisconsin from 2003 to 2011. In his first election to the governorship, he narrowly defeated incumbent Republican governor Scott McCallum. Although in 2002 Democrats increased their number of governorships, Doyle was the only one of them to unseat a Republican.
Peggy Ann Lautenschlager was an American attorney and Democratic politician who was the first chair of the Wisconsin Ethics Commission from 2016 to 2017, the 42nd Attorney General of Wisconsin from 2003 to 2007, the United States Attorney for the Western District of Wisconsin from 1993 to 2001, a member of the Wisconsin State Assembly for the 52nd district from 1989 to 1993, and the Winnebago County District Attorney from 1985 to 1989. Lautenschlager was the first woman to serve as Attorney General of Wisconsin.
William Westwood Lockyer is a retired American politician from California, who held elective office from 1973 to 2015, as State Treasurer of California, California Attorney General, and President Pro Tempore of the California State Senate.
Kathleen Falk is an American attorney, politician, and policymaker from Wisconsin who served as Dane County Executive from 1997 until 2011. In 2013, she was appointed Regional Director of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Region Five.
Same-sex marriage has been legally recognized in Wisconsin since October 6, 2014, upon the resolution of a lawsuit challenging the state's ban on same-sex marriage. On October 6, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal of an appellate court ruling in Wolf v. Walker that had found Wisconsin's ban on same-sex marriage unconstitutional. The appellate court issued its order prohibiting enforcement of the state's ban on same-sex marriage the next day and Wisconsin counties began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples immediately. Wisconsin had previously recognized domestic partnerships, which afforded limited legal rights to same-sex couples, from August 2009 until they were discontinued in April 2018.
Rudolph Thomas Randa was an American judge. He was a United States district judge in the Eastern District of Wisconsin for the last 24 years of his life. He was Chief Judge of the Eastern District of Wisconsin from 2002 until October 2009. Prior to his appointment to the federal court, he was a Wisconsin Circuit Court Judge and served one year on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
Scott Lawrence Fitzgerald is an American politician and former newspaper publisher. A Republican, he represents Wisconsin's 5th congressional district in the U.S. House of Representatives. The district includes many of Milwaukee's northern and western suburbs, such as Waukesha, West Bend, Brookfield, and Mequon. He represented the 13th district in the Wisconsin State Senate from 1995 to 2021.
Michael J. Gableman is an American lawyer and former justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court. A Republican, he has been described as a hard-line conservative.
The 2010 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 2, 2010. All of Wisconsin's executive and administrative officers were up for election as well as one of Wisconsin's U.S. Senate seats, Wisconsin's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, seventeen seats in the Wisconsin State Senate, and all 99 seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly. The 2010 Wisconsin Fall Partisan Primary was held September 14, 2010.
Wolf v. Walker is a federal lawsuit filed in February 2014 that challenged Wisconsin's refusal to grant marriage licenses to same-sex couples, its refusal to recognize same-sex marriages established in other jurisdictions, and related statutes. In June 2014, Judge Barbara Crabb of the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Wisconsin ruled for the plaintiffs. And in the week before she stayed her decision county clerks in 60 of the state's 72 counties issued marriage licenses to same-sex couples and some performed marriage ceremonies for them. The state appealed her decision to the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals, which affirmed her opinion in a unanimous decision on September 4. The state requested a writ of certiorari from the U.S. Supreme Court, which was denied on October 6. Same-sex marriages resumed after the Seventh Circuit issued its mandate the next day.
The 2014 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 4, 2014. Wisconsin's Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Attorney General, Secretary of State, and State Treasurer were all up for election, as well as Wisconsin's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives. The November general election in 2014 also featured a statewide referendum on an amendment to the Constitution of Wisconsin. The 2014 Wisconsin Fall Primary Election was held on August 12, 2014.
Brad Schimel is an American lawyer, judge, and Republican politician. He was the 44th attorney general of Wisconsin, serving from 2015 to 2019. He was defeated seeking re-election in 2018, and was subsequently appointed a Wisconsin circuit court judge in Waukesha County, Wisconsin, by Governor Scott Walker. Schimel is seeking election to the Wisconsin Supreme Court in the 2025 Spring election. He also previously served as district attorney of Waukesha County.
Brian Keith Hagedorn is an American lawyer and a justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, serving since 2019. Prior to his election to the supreme court, he served four years as a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals.
The Wisconsin Elections Commission is a bipartisan regulatory agency of the State of Wisconsin established to administer and enforce election laws in the state. The Wisconsin Elections Commission was established by a 2015 act of the Wisconsin Legislature which also established the Wisconsin Ethics Commission to administer campaign finance, ethics, and lobbying laws. The two commissions began operation on June 30, 2016, replacing the Wisconsin Government Accountability Board (GAB), which was abolished.
The 2018 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 6, 2018. All of Wisconsin's partisan executive and administrative offices were up for election as well as one of Wisconsin's U.S. Senate seats, Wisconsin's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives, seventeen seats in the Wisconsin State Senate, and all 99 seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly. The 2018 Wisconsin Fall Partisan Primary was held August 14, 2018. There were also special elections held during 2018 for three State Assembly seats and two state senate seats.
The global COVID-19 pandemic struck the U.S. state of Wisconsin in early February 2020. Although Wisconsin has to date experienced 144 deaths per 100,000 residents, significantly fewer than the US national average of 196 deaths, COVID-19 was one of the three leading causes of death in Wisconsin in 2020. On August 25, 2021, Wisconsin public health authorities reported 7 day averages of 1,417 new cases and 236 probable cases per day, an increase of greater than 15 fold since late June 2021. This brings the cumulative total of COVID-19 cases in Wisconsin to 651,338. The state's death toll is 7,558, with 30 new deaths over the previous 7 days. As of August 25, 2021, 12.41% of Wisconsin's residents have been positively diagnosed with COVID-19, the 20th highest per-capita case rate among all US states. January 16's 128 COVID-19 deaths set a new single day record for Wisconsin.
The 2020 Wisconsin Fall General Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on November 3, 2020. All of Wisconsin's eight seats in the United States House of Representatives were up for election, as well as sixteen seats in the Wisconsin State Senate and all 99 seats in the Wisconsin State Assembly. Voters also chose ten electors to represent them in the Electoral College, which then participated in selecting the president of the United States. The 2020 Fall Partisan Primary was held on August 11, 2020.
In direct response to election changes related to the COVID-19 pandemic and 2020 United States presidential election in Wisconsin; Donald Trump's campaign launched numerous lawsuits contesting the election processes of Wisconsin. All were either dismissed or dropped.
The 2023 Wisconsin Spring Election was held in the U.S. state of Wisconsin on April 4, 2023. The featured race at the top of the ticket was for an open seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which became the most expensive judicial election in history. Several other nonpartisan local and judicial offices were also decided on the April 4 ballot, including mayoral elections in some of Wisconsin's larger cities—Green Bay, Madison, and Racine. In addition, a special election was held in the 8th State Senate district, concurrent with the Spring elections. The 2023 Wisconsin Spring Primary was held February 21, 2023.
Scott Andrew McDonell is an American politician from Madison, Wisconsin. A Democrat, McDonell currently serves as the County Clerk in Dane County, Wisconsin having been elected to the position on November 6, 2012, and reelected in 2016 and 2020. Before his service as Clerk, McDonell served on the Dane County Board of Supervisors from 1996 to 2013, including eight years as chair.
