Judge Affirms Biden’s Victory in Wisconsin

Trump has now lost 56 court cases seeking to overturn the election results.

A Biden supporter in Milwaukee on November 7, after it was announced that Joe Biden defeated President Trump.Morry Gash/AP

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

A Wisconsin state judge on Friday ruled against the Trump campaign’s last-ditch effort to throw out 221,000 votes in heavily Democratic Milwaukee and Dane counties and affirmed the certification of President-elect Joe Biden’s 20,000-vote victory in the state.

“The court should do everything to ensure that the will of the voters prevails,” said retired Judge Stephen Simanek, who was appointed to hear the case by the conservative chief justice of the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

It was the latest in a long string of legal defeats for Trump and his allies, who have now lost 56 post-election cases seeking to overturn Biden’s victory in key states—including at least four in Wisconsin.

Last week, the Wisconsin Supreme Court refused to take up Trump’s efforts to invalidate Biden’s victory in the state. “Once the door is opened to judicial invalidation of presidential election results, it will be awfully hard to close that door again,” wrote conservative Justice Brian Hagedorn, who joined with the three liberal justices on the court to reject Trump’s lawsuits. “This is a dangerous path we are being asked to tread.”

The Trump campaign has filed a separate hearing in federal court, but Trump-appointed Judge Brett Ludwig sounded very skeptical of its chances of success during a hearing on Thursday. Overturning Wisconsin’s election results would be “probably the most remarkable ruling in the history of this court or the federal judiciary,” Ludwig said.

Trump’s legal defeat in Wisconsin comes as the Supreme Court is considering an unprecedented lawsuit from the president, 18 GOP attorneys general, and 106 House Republicans to nullify the election results in Wisconsin, Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania. As in Wisconsin, Trump’s bid is widely expected to fail.  

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate