MADISON, Wis. – Judge Maria Lazar continues to court extreme right-wing groups and election conspiracy theorists as she campaigns for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court. This weekend, Lazar is advertised as a featured guest at an event hosted by the 5Riders and Lake Country Patriots.
“Maria Lazar’s close ties to radical right-wing extremists continue to get more bizarre by the day,” said Lucy Ripp, a spokesperson for A Better Wisconsin Together.
In addition to hosting Lazar this weekend, 5Riders has also hosted other polarizing figures in the recent past, including members of the book-banning group Moms for Liberty and election conspiracy theorists. Notably, 5Riders also has a history of endorsing failed right-wing candidates for Wisconsin Supreme Court, including Brad Schimel in 2025 and Dan Kelly in 2023.
In January of this year, 5Riders published a group of songs and videos with highly questionable, racially charged lyrics in the song “Separate but Equal” that apparently misconstrues the three co-equal branches of the government and includes lyrics, “It’s about keeping the dark from killing the light.”
Lazar’s weekend appearance is just the latest in her long dalliance with the extreme right. Previously she has:
- Been endorsed by Wisconsin’s most radical anti-abortion groups, including Pro-Life Wisconsin, whose mission is to ban abortion with no exceptions and criminalize doctors and nurses for providing abortion care;
- Ruled in favor of allowing far-right election conspiracists access to personal voting data;
- Embraced election deniers like Michael Flynn, Jim Troupis, and Michael Gableman; and
- Praised members of Moms for Liberty, a group notorious for their book banning agenda and designation by the Southern Poverty Law Center as an extremist antigovernment group.
Most recently, Lazar dodged answering questions about whether or not she would have supported Donald Trump’s campaign lawsuit that came before the Wisconsin Supreme Court that tried to overturn his 2020 election loss by throwing out ballots cast by 220,000 Wisconsinites in two counties.
“Cozying up to people and groups who would undermine our rights and freedoms is a huge red flag when the person doing it is a sitting judge who aims to sit on Wisconsin’s highest court,” said Ripp.
