Very Close Race for North Carolina Supreme Court Seat

This post will be updated as results become official. Last updated on November 19, 2024.

Voters in 29 states elected justices to 69 seats on their states’ highest courts this fall. State supreme courts have long had substantial power to shape the law and lives of people in their states, but these courts and their elections have taken on new political prominence since the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization thrust state courts and their decisions about reproductive rights into the spotlight.

This year’s races — the first cycle to take place entirely after Dobbs — reflected this new era of state judicial politics. Voters in Montana, Ohio, Michigan, and beyond saw campaign ads telling them that their votes in this year’s judicial races would affect reproductive rights, messages that candidates and groups did not often put before voters in previous cycles. And traditionally quiet retention elections in Arizona, Missouri, and Indiana, in which justices don’t have an opponent, saw campaigns to unseat justices over their decisions that negatively affected abortion rights. Meanwhile, conservative groups funded an anti-retention campaign in Oklahoma.

Interest groups supported these new-style campaigns with unprecedented spending. On the left, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union each waged multi-million-dollar campaigns in a handful of key states, committing more than either group has ever spent on judicial elections. On the right, the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness (RSLC), the leading spender in state judicial elections for the last decade, was joined by new groups funded by leading conservative donors who have not previously spent in judicial elections. This year’s races, combined with the record shattering 2023 Wisconsin Supreme Court election, will likely account for the most expensive judicial election cycle ever, once candidates and groups submit their final campaign finance disclosures.

Below are the outcomes in some of the most closely watched races.

North Carolina supreme court race still too close to call

Incumbent justice Allison Riggs (D) remains in a very close race with lower court judge Jefferson Griffin (R) that is headed to a recount.

The North Carolina Supreme Court currently has a 5–⁠2 Republican majority, which would expand to 6–⁠1 with a Griffin victory. Republicans first gained a majority on the court as a result of the state’s 2022 supreme court elections and the court has since then regularly ruled in favor of the interests of the Republican legislature. Immediately after the 2022 elections, the court even took the unusual step of clawing back cases to reverse the previous Democratic majority’s decisions about redistricting, a voter ID law, and school funding.

Montana’s court moved slightly to the right

With two open seats on the Montana Supreme Court, conservative and progressive groups spent millions in the nonpartisan election to shift the ideological balance on the court. Ultimately, candidates with the backing of conservative groups won one and lost the other. Attorney Cory Swanson, supported by the RSLC, defeated Jerry Lynch in the race for chief justice, while trial court judge Katherine Bidegaray, who received the support of Planned Parenthood, defeated Dan Wilson in the race for an associate justice position. These results will likely shift the court’s ideological balance to the right as compared to the current court but will come up short of flipping the court’s ideological majority.

The current court has been at odds with the state’s conservative legislature and governor by striking down restrictions on abortion and voting rights and resisting the legislature’s authority to subpoena the court’s own records. This year’s elections are unlikely to immediately call into question the continued validity of any of these decisions given that they were unanimous or nearly so. For now, the court is likely to continue to conflict with the legislature at times, including in pending environmental litigation about whether the state is obligated to mitigate its policies’ effects on climate change. But upcoming elections in 2026 and 2028 could make the court more conservative.

As the winner of the chief justice race, Swanson will assume responsibilities beyond those of the other justices, including appointing judges to fill vacancies when judges and justices recuse themselves, marshalling resources to help courts throughout the state reduce backlogs, and defending the judiciary in any disputes with other branches. These additional powers could allow Swanson to have an outsized impact on law and policy in the state.

Republican justices in Ohio solidified their majority 

Republicans won all three seats up for election this year, growing their majority on the court from 4–⁠3 to 6–⁠1. Lower court judge Megan Shanahan (R) defeated incumbent Justice Michael Donnelly. Justice Joseph Deters (R) defeated Justice Melody Stewart (D). (Deters challenged Stewart so that he could win her full term rather than stand for the partial term that he was appointed to last year.) Lower court judge Dan Hawkins (R) defeated Lisa Forbes (D). State supreme court elections in Ohio were previously nonpartisan. Republicans have won every election since legislators added party labels to the ballot for the first time in 2022.

These outcomes grow a Republican majority that had already become more conservative after moderate Republican Chief Justice Maureen O’Connor retired from the court in 2022. Some of the current court’s most significant decisions related to direct democracy. In each of those cases, the court sided with Republican interests that were seeking to water down voters’ ability to amend the state constitution. In the coming years, the new court will likely be asked to interpret abortion rights provisions that Ohio voters approved in 2023.

The remaining Democrat on the court, Justice Jennifer Brunner, will stand for reelection in 2026.

Michigan Democratic justices expanded their majority 

Democratic candidates won both seats up for election this year, with professor Kimberly Ann Thomas defeating Republican State Representative Andrew Fink and incumbent justice Kyra Harris Bolden defeating Patrick O’Grady. While candidates do not appear on the ballot with party labels, they are endorsed by the parties at party conventions prior to the election. Justices endorsed by the Democratic Party now comprise a 5–⁠2 majority on the court, up from the current 4–⁠3 majority.

The Michigan Supreme Court has issued a number of decisions in recent years expanding rights under the state constitution. In one case, the court ruled that mandatory sentences of life without parole for young persons were unconstitutional. In another, the court struck down an underhanded tactic deployed by the legislature to undermine citizen ballot initiatives by adopting them — thereby avoiding voters having the opportunity to vote on them — but then amending them to change their impact. The new court may have to apply newly approved amendments to the state constitution, including the right to reproductive freedom which voters approved in 2022.

Kentucky adds a Democratically endorsed justice to its court

Judge Pamela Goodwine defeated attorney Erin Izzo in the election for the 5th District seat on the state supreme court covering Lexington, Frankfort, and neighboring counties. (Justices in Kentucky are elected from seven distinct districts rather than statewide.) While the race was nonpartisan, Goodwine was endorsed by Gov. Andy Beshear (D) and received backing from teachers’ unions while Izzo ran ads attacking Goodwine for her support from “out-of-state left wing radicals.”

The current court has at times ruled both in favor and against the state legislature’s Republican supermajority and this year’s election likely maintains the status quo. The court, for example, rejected a challenge to abortion restrictions based on the fact that the medical professionals who brought the suit lacked standing, though the court’s decision did not reach the merits of the case and answer whether state law protects abortion access. The court also rejected a claim that the state’s congressional and house districts were the result of an unconstitutional partisan gerrymander.

But in other recent decisions the court acted as a check on the legislature. It struck down by a 6–⁠1 vote a new law passed to move lawsuits alleging violations of the state constitution away from a judge who had ruled against the legislature on numerous occasions. And in yet another high-profile decision, the court unanimously struck down a law providing tax credits for spending on private school tuition.

Candidates backed by attorney general win in Texas

In Texas, the Texas Supreme Court has the final word on questions of state civil law while the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals has the final word on questions of state criminal law. Both courts are elected in partisan elections and are comprised entirely of Republicans. Following the Court of Criminal Appeals’ 2021 decision that Attorney General Ken Paxton could not unilaterally prosecute instances of alleged voter fraud, however, Paxton funded three Republican candidates to challenge incumbent Republicans in their primaries. The Paxton-backed challengers each won their primaries earlier this year and each went on to win the general election for their respective seats. Republicans also easily won all three seats up for elections to the Texas Supreme Court.

Conservative anti-retention campaign ousted a justice in Oklahoma

Nineteen states use retention elections to decide whether sitting justices will receive another full term on the court. In these elections, justices do not have an opponent, but voters simply vote whether to keep a justice on the court. Across the country, retention elections have generally been quiet affairs in which there was usually no organized campaign against justices, and voters retained them with more than 60 percent of the vote.

In Oklahoma, however, conservative groups with close ties to the governor ran an anti-retention campaign against three sitting justices who had been appointed by a Democratic governor. These campaigns successfully denied an additional term to one justice, Yvonne Kauger, while nearly unseating the other two. According to an analysis by Michigan State University professor Quinn Yeargain, Kauger had been a key vote in some of the highest profile decisions out of the Oklahoma Supreme Court in recent years — including decisions about public funding of religious schools and direct democracy — and was a necessary vote in the court’s rulings that a narrow right to abortion exists under the state constitution. Kauger responded to dissenting opinions in one of those cases with a defiant two-sentence concurrence, saying: “Any analysis of an abortion statute that proceeds under the proposition that the life of the mother is unworthy of consideration is defective.”

Because Kauger was ousted in a retention election, it is not immediately known who will replace her. Under Oklahoma law, the governor will appoint a justice from a list provided by the state’s judicial nominating commission.

Anti-retention campaigns fell short in Arizona, Indiana, and Missouri

Progressive groups also mounted anti-retention campaigns in Arizona, Indiana, and Missouri against justices whose decisions had negatively affected reproductive rights. In each state, those justices kept their seats, though at least in Arizona the campaigns do appear to have affected vote totals. While justices standing in retention elections in Arizona have tended to receive the support of around 70 percent of voters, justices Clint Bolick and Kathryn Hackett King received less than 60 percent of the vote.

Douglas Keith is a founding editor of State Court Report and a senior counsel in the Judiciary Program at the Brennan Center for Justice.

Suggested Citation: Douglas Keith, How the Most Important Judicial Races of 2024 Played Out, Sᴛᴀᴛᴇ Cᴏᴜʀᴛ Rᴇᴘᴏʀᴛ (Nov. 7, 2024), https://statecourtreport.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/how-most-important-judicial-races-2024-played-out