The featured race at the top of the ticket was a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which was seen as an early referendum on the policies of the newly inaugurated governor, Scott Walker.

Several other nonpartisan local and judicial offices were also decided on the April ballot, including mayoral elections in some of Wisconsin's larger cities—Green Bay, Madison, and Racine.

Republicans' preferred candidate, incumbent justice David Prosser Jr., won the Supreme Court election by a narrow margin that resulted in a contentious recount.

[1] 2011 also saw the first set of recall elections incited by Governor Scott Walker's controversial 2011 Wisconsin Act 10, which stripped public employee unions of their collective bargaining rights.

[1] A special election was held in Wisconsin's 48th Assembly district on August 9, 2011, to fill the vacancy caused by the resignation of Joe Parisi to become Dane County executive.

The incumbent judge David Prosser Jr., first appointed by Governor Tommy Thompson in 1998, won his second ten-year term, defeating assistant attorney general Joanne Kloppenburg.

On election night, Kloppenburg appeared to have won a narrow victory, but during a recount, the Waukesha County clerk discovered 14,000 missing votes from the city of Brookfield, which broke heavily in favor of Prosser.