Wisconsin Supreme Court candidates Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel traded barbs and defended their track records on Wednesday night during their only debate for an open seat on the high court.

Recognized as the liberal and conservative candidates respectively, Crawford and Schimel participated in a one-hour debate moderated by WISN 12 at Marquette University Law School. The April 1 election will determine partisan control of the court.

Here are five takeaways from their feisty Wisconsin Supreme Court debate:

The debate got heated

Both candidates took jabs at each other just minutes into the debate, underscoring how contentious the race has gotten.

After Schimel noted toward the beginning of the debate that he would look at cases objectively and that he wasn’t rooting for any team, Crawford replied that he was “paying good lip service to the principles of impartiality and open mindedness.”

“But throughout this campaign, he has taken issues on cases pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court,” Crawford added, pointing to previous remarks he made about the state’s 1849 law that bans nearly all abortions and criminalizes providing an abortion.

She appeared to be referencing reporting where Schimel suggested the 1849 law was valid and that there was nothing in that law that made it invalid.

“That is not the kind of open mindedness that we expect from judges. It is prejudicial to the parties in that case,” she added.

Schimel argued that his remarks were being taken out of context, saying he was asked if the 1849 abortion law was valid.

“And the answer is, my answer was, it was passed by two houses of the legislature and signed by a governor. That means it's a valid law,” he said. “But what I said next was that there's a real question as to whether that law reflects the will of the people of Wisconsin now and........

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