In today’s edition … A deal may be coming together to fund most of DHS … Why the Wisconsin Supreme Court race next month matters … but first …
The big news
Democrat Emily Gregory won the special election Tuesday to represent a Florida state House district that includes President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago home, the Associated Press projects, a stunning upset that signals Democratic momentum ahead of the 2026 midterms.
We previewed the race yesterday, including Trump voting by mail ballot while deriding the practice.
The Democrats’ victory is a coup for the party, which has struggled for years in Florida as the state has moved to the right. The win is also the latest in a string of overperformances by Democrats in elections since the start of Trump’s second term in 2025.
“Mar-a-Lago just flipped red to blue, which should have Republicans sweating the midterms,” said Heather Williams, president of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee, a group that supported Gregory. “If Mar-a-Lago is vulnerable, imagine what’s possible this November.”
You can read more about the victory here.
Why a quieter Supreme Court contest in Wisconsin matters
Remember when Elon Musk was running around a stage while wearing a cheesehead hat last year? How could you forget?
Why the headgear? At the time, Republicans were angling for control of the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which they believed could affect the fate of the country. Another Supreme Court race in Wisconsin is coming up, on April 7, but this time, there’s no Musk, hat or the kind of spending that made the last contest the most expensive state judicial race in U.S. history.
The officially nonpartisan race between Maria Lazar, the conservative-backed candidate, and Chris Taylor, the liberal-backed candidate, is a much quieter affair, but the implications are significant. Locally, the court could have something to say — again — about abortion laws. Nationally, Wisconsin will continue to be a battleground state, and the court — as it did in 2020 to reject Trump’s attempt to invalidate votes — could have a role in adjudicating election law during the 2028 presidential election. The two candidates will debate for the first and only time tonight.
The race will not flip control of the state Supreme Court — liberals have a 4-3 majority, and this race will replace retiring Justice Rebecca Bradley, a conservative bloc jurist. But a win by Taylor, a judge on the Wisconsin Court of Appeals and a former Democratic state legislator, would grow the liberal majority to 5-2 and likely cement liberal control of the court into 2030.
“People are paying attention to this race. They understand the importance of the court and they’re hungry for a state Supreme Court that actually stands up for them and not the most powerful, not the more privileged,” Taylor told us. “But on the national scale, I don’t think we just don’t see — thank goodness — the money pouring into the race.”
Lazar, an appeals court judge, has attempted to separate this race from politics, an acknowledgment that the politicization of past contests — see: Elon Musk in a cheesehead hat — did not help the conservative candidates.
“All of those races on both sides were conducted as if it was a political, partisan, agenda-driven race, and I’ve said from day one that I am going to be a judicial candidate who tells you about my judicial experience, my legal experience, my judicial philosophy and why I am the better judicial candidate,” Lazar said. “Turning these races into political races is a mistake.”
But in a knock against the fact that Taylor was elected a state House Democrat as recently as 2020, Lazar added, “You need a judge, not a politician, on this bench.” Taylor responded by noting she has been a judge for six years and believes she has a “strong judicial record of being independent.”
Taylor’s primary attack on Lazar has been around abortion, with the liberal-backed campaign running ads that “abortion is on the ballot” in the race, noting that antiabortion groups have supported Lazar in the past and highlighting a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel report about the conservative-backed candidate believing Wisconsin voters would support a law banning abortion once a fetal heartbeat is detected.
“That is very out of touch with the people of the state of Wisconsin,” said Taylor. People in Wisconsin are “really alarmed by the rollback of their rights they’re seeing at the federal level. State courts are getting more and more important in protecting some of these basic rights.”
Taylor has also focused on election law, noting that the Wisconsin Supreme Court was a bulwark against Republican attempts to reverse Trump’s 2020 loss in the state, and that the winner of this race could play a role in adjudicating the 2028 presidential election.
“Those attacks are not going to stop,” Taylor said of attempts to undermine the state’s election laws.
We asked Lazar if Trump won the 2020 election. “No,” she said. “He lost.” And the conservative-backed jurist said she “looks a little askance” at either party or state attempting to redistrict “two, three, four” times in a decade. Notably, however, Lazar defended Republicans’ 2010 gerrymandering of the state legislature.
If you don’t know much about this race, don’t worry, neither do the people of Wisconsin: A Marquette Law School Poll released yesterday found that a whopping 46 percent of likely voters remain undecided, with 30 percent supporting Taylor and 22 percent favoring Lazar.
We decided to ask our colleague and Wisconsin expert Patrick Marley for insights on the race, and he noted that since 2018, liberals have won four of five Wisconsin Supreme Court races — all by 10 percentage points or more. Here is more from Patrick:
Liberals gained a majority on the court in 2023, ending 15 years of conservative control.
Conservative Justice Annette Ziegler recently announced she would not run for reelection next year, boosting liberals’ chances of winning that open race. If liberals win the elections this year and next year, they would establish a commanding 6-1 majority.
The circumstances mark a dramatic turnaround for Democrats in the state, who struggled to win court races in the era before Trump and shifts in the electorate. During that earlier period, Republicans mobilized their base to vote for conservative candidates, while Democrats struggled to get their voters to turn out.
That changed as Milwaukee’s suburbs became more liberal, the Madison area grew, and the Republicans built a coalition that was less likely to show up for lower-turnout elections.
Get ready with The Post
- Bondi’s post-Oct. 7 terrorism task force faltering after initial fanfare, from Perry Stein.
- Partisan brawl in Virginia muddles Spanberger’s message of moderation, from Gregory S. Schneider.
- Justices seem inclined to revive Trump policy blocking migrants at border, from Julian Mark.
- Army paratroopers ordered to Middle East as U.S. weighs next move in Iran conflict, from Dan Lamothe and Noah Robertson.
- Oklahoma energy executive Alan Armstrong sworn in as U.S. senator, from Theodoric Meyer and Mariana Alfaro.
What we’re watching
We may be getting closer to a deal to reopen the Department of Homeland Security.
After days of drama at the nation’s airports, marked by long lines at security checkpoints and ICE agents deploying to some transit hubs, it appears that a deal may be in the offing.
According to our colleagues Theodoric Meyer, Isaac Arnsdorf and Riley Beggin, Senate Republicans sent their Democratic counterparts a deal Tuesday to end the shutdown, proposing funding all aspects of the department except for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, according to three people familiar with the plan, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private conversations.
Democrats have not agreed to the proposal yet, but there is a belief that the chaos at American airports could make a deal more likely.
So where is Trump on this? “I don’t want to comment until I see the deal, but as you know, they’re negotiating a deal,” he told reporters Tuesday, acknowledging that any agreement the Senate reaches he will “pretty much not [be] happy with it.” Trump, as we highlighted yesterday, is attempting to link the Save America Act, a sweeping voting bill, to the funding agreement.
Our colleagues raise this crucial point: “It’s unclear whether the deal under discussion would include any of Democrats’ demands, which include tighter rules governing the use of warrants and barring agents from wearing masks.”
So what does this all mean? A deal is getting closer, but considerable hurdles must be overcome, including Trump’s support for a deal and questions about whether House Republicans will go along.
In your local paper
The News & Observer (North Carolina): North Carolina Senate leader Phil Berger conceded his Senate primary on Tuesday to Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page, ending a bruising recount that saw one of the state’s most powerful Republicans ousted from his perch.
The Boston Globe (Massachusetts): Lawmakers in Massachusetts are considering new legislation to regulate the use of artificial intelligence in political advertising, spurred by AI attack ads already targeting political campaigns.
Tucson Sentinel (Arizona): It’s been striking how quickly communities nationwide have erased Cesar Chavez’s name from prominent positions after a sexual abuse scandal engulfed the onetime vaunted labor leader. Tucson is the latest community to address Chavez’s role.
From you
The vast majority of our readers told us yesterday that they support mail-in voting, with some stating that they thought the practice was overused around the 2020 election and during the coronavirus pandemic.
“Voting by mail is the only way elderly people in rural areas of Maine can vote. There is no fraud and Trump is trying to undermine people’s rights,” wrote Karlene Additon-Strout.
“Everyone in Colorado gets a ballot in the mail well before Election Day. And official election documents. … Our statewide election management is excellent,” added Richard Berman.
And Paula Frazier wrote: “Of course voters should be able to vote by mail. However, this would work only with an honest and efficient post office system. There is a big problem in that the post office now does not have to date-stamp the piece of mail on the date it is actually received.”
Some of our readers shared concerns with mail-in voting.
Chris Hesse wrote: “People should have skin in the game. I’d rather someone go to a little bit of effort to show up in person at the polls than to mail everyone a ballot. … It isn’t a matter of cheating; it is a matter of caring enough about issues. Those who show up are more likely to be more informed of the issues.”
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How can you not love March Madness? This newsletter loves college basketball and thoroughly enjoyed the first weekend of the tournament. But we and others have noticed something: far fewer upsets! Many blame changes to name, image and likeness rules. So we wanted to ask you: Are you watching March Madness? Does it worry you that massive upsets appear to be a thing of the past? And what would you do to change this trend? Let us and your fellow Early Brief readers know at [email protected].
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