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Michael Gableman, a self-described conservative, pro-law-enforcement judge, won his bid to become the newest member of the Wisconsin Supreme Court late Tuesday, unseating incumbent Justice Louis Butler, the court's first black member, in a win that likely tilts the court to the right.

It was the first time in 41 years that a sitting state Supreme Court justice failed to win re-election. Gableman, 41, Burnett County's only circuit court judge, ended Butler's nearly four years on the court. Butler, 56, a former Milwaukee County Circuit Court judge, was appointed by Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle in 2004.

Voters in the Madison and Milwaukee areas voted heavily for Butler while rural, suburban Milwaukee and North Woods voters went mostly for Gableman, who said his message of being a judicial conservative was key to his win. Butler did not concede after the race was called by The Associated Press just before midnight but was expected to issue a statement this morning.

"I am proud of the campaign we ran," Gableman said. "We worked very hard to talk about the differences, the very stark and very real differences in our professional backgrounds and also our judicial philosophies."

Observers believe Gableman's election to a 10-year term will flip the current 4-3 liberal-conservative split on the court in favor of the conservatives.

Although the race is non-partisan - and the state's ethics code for judges cautions judicial candidates from aligning themselves with any political party - the Republican Party of Wisconsin and the Democratic Judicial Campaign Committee made hundreds of thousands of phone calls on behalf of their favored candidates in the days before the election.

A WisPolitics study found that at least $3 million was spent on thousands of TV ads in the Butler-Gableman race, most of it by outside groups. The expense and negative tenor of the race reignited calls in the Legislature and elsewhere for public funding of judicial campaigns or replacing elections with merit selection of judges.

The infusion of cash is part of a "very troubling" nationwide trend of special interest groups trying to control the makeup of state supreme and appeals courts through contentious campaigns that give voters a negative view of the judiciary, said Howard Schweber, who teaches law and political science at the UW-Madison.

But Schweber said one positive aspect of the outside spending in a non-partisan race where candidates can't promise to rule one way or another is that voters can glean cues about a candidate's philosophical leanings.

"The ads have been terribly effective in informing voters which candidate is the liberal candidate and which candidate is the conservative candidate," he said.

Butler had been targeted by conservative organizations, including Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, that alleged the former public defender was anti-business and hostile toward prosecutors and the police. Butler was supported by more than 220 judges, compared for 12 for Gableman, by Planned Parenthood and by the major labor unions, including those representing 18,000 uniformed officers.

Gableman, a former prosecutor, also was attacked by left-leaning groups, including the Greater Wisconsin Committee, One Wisconsin Now and the Wisconsin Education Association Council. Those groups had raised questions about whether Gableman's appointment in 2002 to the Burnett County seat was based on merit or as a reward for donations he gave and fundraising he did on behalf of then-Gov. Scott McCallum, a Republican.

Gableman was supported by a majority of elected sheriffs and district attorneys in Wisconsin, Wisconsin Right to Life and the National Rifle Association. He billed himself as "law enforcement's choice for the Supreme Court."

Gableman also faced heat from some of his colleagues on the bench for what's been called the most negative judicial campaign in memory. In statements issued Friday, 52 Wisconsin judges blasted Gableman's tactics, including a nasty TV commercial linking Butler's actions to the release of a convicted sex offender that critics charged was false and racially insensitive.

"Gableman has exceeded the bounds of fairness, honesty and integrity for candidates running for judicial office," one group of 35 judges wrote.

But Gableman defended the ad, saying it was a fair contrast between his background as a prosecutor and his opponent's past defending criminals. He consistently labeled Butler as a "judicial activist" who rules based on his own personal and political views rather than the law and prior court decisions - a charge Butler denied.