Trump mocks failed Wisconsin judicial candidate for not seeking his endorsement

Former President Trump took aim at Daniel Kelly, the losing Republican candidate for the Wisconsin state Supreme Court who was defeated by a liberal candidate this week, calling him a “foolish man” for not seeking the former president’s endorsement.

“He bragged that he won’t seek Trump’s Endorsement, so I didn’t give it—which guaranteed his loss,” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform Wednesday. “How foolish is a man that doesn’t seek an Endorsement that would have won him the Election?”

Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice, lost on Tuesday to liberal candidate Janet Protasiewicz in a closely watched race in Wisconsin that flipped the court to a liberal majority for the first time in 15 years. The result was seen as a victory for Democrats in the state, with the state court becoming even more important following the fall of federal protections for abortion access.

Kelly said in the run up to the election that he was not looking for endorsement from Trump.

“We’re not looking for one,” Kelly said in an interview last week with NBC News, when asked about a possible last-minute Trump endorsement. “I’m not really looking for endorsements from political actors.”

Protasiewicz won the race against Kelly on Tuesday by a comfortable margin — she got 55 percent of the vote, a total that was about 200,000 more than Kelly. Trump’s suggestion that his endorsement would have pushed Kelly over the top in the race comes after Trump narrowly lost the state in the 2020 general election to President Biden; Trump lost by less than 1 percentage point. He carried the state in 2016 over Hillary Clinton by less than 1 percent.