The next high profile electoral battle (for a technically nonpartisan office) will take place in two months for Wisconsin’s open Supreme Court seat. Over the last 100 years, Wisconsin has held 77 elections to its Supreme Court. Just 16 of these were open seat contests – in 1925, 1949, 1956, 1961, 1963, 1977, 1978, 1979, 1980, 1983, 1995, 1996, 2003, 2007, 2018, and 2019. The average victory margin was 20.0 points in these open seat races versus 46.8 points for those involving incumbents (of whom, just five of 61 were defeated during the last 100 years). When looking at contested races only, however, that gap disappears almost entirely: the 15 contested open seat races since 1923 had an average margin of victory of 14.8 points while the 39 contested races with an incumbent were decided by an average of 16.9 points. Just one of the last 11 elections for the office since 2007 has been uncontested.

At this point during the 2020 cycle, eight Democrats had already jumped into the race for president: Maryland U.S. Representative John Delaney (July 28, 2017), New York businessman Andrew Yang (November 6, 2017), West Virginia State Senator Richard Ojeda (November 11, 2018), former HUD Secretary Julian Castro of Texas (January 12, 2019), California U.S. Senator Kamala Harris (January 21, 2019), California author and spiritualist Marianne Williamson (January 28, 2019),  New Jersey U.S. Senator Cory Booker (February 1, 2019), and Hawaii U.S. Representative Tulsi Gabbard (February 2, 2019). U.S. Senators Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts (February 9, 2019) and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota (February 10, 2019) also launched their campaigns four years ago this week. Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley is poised to become just the second Republican in the race next week, joining former President Donald Trump.