State judicial races are on the ballot in November. Here’s what you need to know

The midterms are not just about Congress. 

While high-profile contests that will determine the balance of power in Washington have dominated news cycles, judicial elections are also happening in half of the country on November 3.  

State Supreme Court races are on the ballot in 24 states, with half of those being retention elections in which voters decide whether an incumbent judge should remain seated for another term. More than 200 seats on appellate court benches and even more at the trial court level are also up, according to Ballotpedia.  

These races often get overshadowed, but their outcomes are influential. 

“Issues that reach the state Supreme Court affect every corner of [people’s] lives,” said American University Professor Thomas Kahn, naming them as among the “most powerful courts in the land” second only to the U.S. Supreme Court.  

Douglas Keith, the deputy director of the Brennan Center for Justice’s Judiciary Program, noted that 95% of all cases each year are filed outside of the federal court system.  

“There may have been cases that the public thought previously would always end up at the U.S. Supreme Court, but now they’re going to go to and end at their state’s highest court and that could be cases about abortion rights or voting rights or environmental law or criminal justice reform,” he said. “All of these things are issues that state high courts have tremendous amount power to interpret and apply.” 

The process for putting a judge on the state Supreme Court bench varies in each state, which is why not every voter sees them on the ballot at the same time — if at all.  

The Brennan Center notes that elections are used as at least part of the judicial selection system in 38 states, through a combination of partisan, nonpartisan and retention elections. The remaining states use gubernatorial or direct legislative appointments, though the exact methods differ.  

Contested races are generally conducted like any other election for political office. And depending on the state, candidates may or may not have a party label attached to their names on the ballot.  

Retention states are different. A justice, usually appointed by the governor, has no opponent and faces a simple yes-or-no vote on whether they should keep their job. And it’s rare for judges to lose them.  

“It’s not unprecedented, but it does not happen often,” Kahn said. 

Partisan contests for state Supreme Courts are concentrated in just a handful of states, only some of which still have races to decide in November.  

In Alabama, Democrat AshLeigh Dunham is running against Republican incumbent Greg Shaw for a spot on the highest court. North Carolina will see Democratic incumbent Anita Earls square off against Republican Sarah Stevens.  

Ohio voters are electing justices for two Supreme Court seats, with incumbent Democrat Jennifer Brunner facing Republican Colleen O’Donnell in the race for one, and incumbent Republican Dan Hawkins up against Democrat Marilyn Zayas in the other.   

Four Republican justices — Chief Justice Jimmy Blacklock, Associate Justices James Sullivan, Kyle Hawkins and Brett Busby — are seeking reelection in Texas, each facing a Democratic challenger.  

There are also two state Supreme Court seats up in Michigan, which uses a unique method to determine who’s on the ballot. Political parties select candidates during nominating conventions to compete against incumbents, but the general elections are nonpartisan, so those affiliations do not appear on the ballot.  

And while seven other states are also holding nonpartisan state Supreme Court elections on paper, none are devoid of political influence.  

“In states where the court’s ideological balance is nevertheless clear, and seemingly up for grabs, you will see interest groups that are clearly on the left or clearly on the right getting involved in these races to try and change the majority on the court,” Keith said.  

“And so, just because a state has nonpartisan judicial elections does not mean those races won’t become highly politicized or very high cost,” he added.  

That tension is at the center of an ongoing debate over whether judges, who are expected to apply the law evenly and impartially, should even have to campaign for office in the first place.

Supporters of the elections model argue that it gives voters a direct say in holding those in power accountable. But others say an appointment model better preserves judicial independence because it insulates judges from political pressure.  

“There is no perfect way to pick judges, and these different systems all reflect an attempt to balance some values that are often competing like transparency and democratic accountability and quality of judges and all these things,” Keith noted.  

The debate was put to the test in Kansas this year when voters overwhelmingly rejected a constitutional amendment in the August primary that would have allowed direct elections of state Supreme Court justices. That proposal was backed by Republicans, who have been pushing for more conservative rulings on issues like abortion and school funding, according to the Kansas Reflector. 

As a result, the state’s retention elections will go ahead as planned in November, with Justices Larkin Walsh and Eric Rosen on the ballot.  

In addition to selecting a replacement for a retiring justice on the state Supreme Court, voters in Montana are also considering a proposal that would enshrine nonpartisan judicial elections in the state constitution after the GOP-controlled legislature failed to advance bills that would have made them partisan.  

The push for partisanship in Montana reflects the “gamesmanship” going on behind the scenes in other states too, Keith said.  

“Legislators are doing everything they can to make these courts more of an ally and less of an obstacle,” he said. He pointed to both Montana and North Carolina as states where the ideological balance may not be at stake this year but will be in 2028.  

Those who argue that states should stop electing judges say the influx of cash in these races is a big reason why.  

A Politico poll conducted in April found that 72 percent of Americans said there was too much money in politics, with a majority saying they think money shapes election outcomes. Just under 40 percent of respondents said money could outright buy results, while another 34 percent said money could influence elections but not buy them.  

“In many cases…special interest money is being donated with the hope that the money may influence the outcome or the decisions of the judges, and of course, that’s a terrible result,” Kahn said. “You want judges to make decisions based just on the facts and on the merits and on the law, not on purely partisan political basis.” 

That concern has long existed in state judicial races, as a Brennan Center poll indicates that a whopping 87 percent of voters in 2013 said they believed that campaign spending had “some” or “a great deal” of influence on judges’ decision making.  

Since then, hundreds of millions of dollars have continued to flood into these contests.  

More than $100 million was estimated to have been spent on last year’s officially nonpartisan Wisconsin Supreme Court race between Susan Crawford and Brad Schimel, attracting mega-donors like Elon Musk and George Soros, along with their affiliated PACs.  

And while spending isn’t expected to reach close to that level in any race this cycle, data still shows campaign advertising figures in the thousands to low-millions range across several states.  

“If courts are supposed to be doing something different than raw politics, all of this spending and the more these races look like any other elected office, make it much harder for the public to think of judges as anything other than politicians in robes,” Keith said.  

Further down the ballot are also elections for seats on appellate court benches. These judges are usually the first to hear appeals of trial court decisions, and because high courts hear only a small share of cases, they often effectively have the final say on how to interpret state law.  

Keith acknowledges that obtaining information about judicial races is “harder than it should be.” He recommends that voters take advantage of guides from state bar associations, voting rights groups and seek the perspective of lawyers and advocates who are familiar with the workings of the state’s legal system before choosing who to vote for.  

“To me, this is one of the key unresolved tensions in the decision to elect judges,” he said. “It is one thing to adopt a system that allows for some amount of democratic accountability but that assumes that you are giving the public enough information to sort of carry out that accountability.” 

“And as of yet, I don’t think that the public is being given the information that they deserve or are entitled to in order to make those decisions.”