All three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices on Tuesday’s ballot for retention will remain on the bench, following an unprecedented and closely watched retention election that eclipsed previous spending records as Democrats sought to protect the liberal judges.
Pennsylvania’s highest court will maintain its liberal majority for at least the next two years, retaining JusticesChristine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht through the 2026 midterms and ahead of the 2028 presidential election. During that time, the court will hear cases that impact the daily lives of Pennsylvania residents, such as abortion access, voter access, mail voting law, and more. The Associated Press called the race at 9:53 p.m. Tuesday, less than two hours after polls closed.
The stakes of Tuesday’s judicial retention election were set up a decade ago by a perfect storm of factors.The three justices up for retention — Donohue, Dougherty, Wecht — were each elected as Democrats in 2015 during a rare and transitional period for the court when Democrats took a majority. The 2015 election was the first time three seats were open at one time, in part due to resignations of disgraced former justices. Since then, Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht have played decisive roles on the 5-2 liberal majority of Pennsylvania’s highest court.
This year’s retention race — usually a sleepy, off-year affair — topped $16 million in ad buys and mailers, mostly from Democrats or aligned groups, to try to draw voters out to the polls to protect the liberal majority they view as the last backstop to protect Pennsylvanians’ rights during an overreaching Trump administration. Republicans, meanwhile, saw the high-stakes race as a “once-in-a-lifetime opportunity” to oust three liberal state Supreme Court justices in one election….
Category Archives: judicial elections
ProPublica Profile of NC Supreme Court Chief Justice Paul Newby Draws Veiled Threat from Justice’s Daughter to Drop the Story or Deal with Trump Administration
In early 2023, Paul Newby, the Republican chief justice of North Carolina’s Supreme Court, gave the state and the nation a demonstration of the stunning and overlooked power of his office.
The previous year, the court — then majority Democrat — had outlawed partisan gerrymandering in the swing state. Over Newby’s vehement dissent, it had ordered independent outsiders to redraw electoral maps that the GOP-controlled legislature had crafted to conservatives’ advantage.
The traditional ways to undo such a decision would have been for the legislature to pass a new law that made gerrymandering legal or for Republicans to file a lawsuit. But that would’ve taken months or years.
Newby cleared a way to get there sooner, well before the crucial 2024 election.
In January — once two newly elected Republican justices were sworn in, giving the party a 5-2 majority — GOP lawmakers quickly filed a petition asking the Supreme Court to rehear the gerrymandering case. Such do-overs are rare. Since 1993, the court had granted only two out of 214 petitions for rehearings, both to redress narrow errors, not differences in interpreting North Carolina’s constitution. The lawyers who’d won the gerrymandering case were incredulous.
“We were like, they can’t possibly do this,” said Jeff Loperfido, the chief counsel for voting rights at the Southern Coalition for Social Justice. “Can they revisit their opinions when the ink is barely dry?”
Under Newby’s leadership, they did.
Behind the closed doors of the courthouse, he set aside decades of institutional precedent by not gathering the court’s seven justices to debate the legislature’s request in person, as chief justices had historically done for important matters.
Instead, in early February, Justice Phil Berger Jr., Newby’s right-hand man and presumed heir on the court, circulated a draft of a special order agreeing to the rehearing, sources familiar with the matter said. Berger’s accompanying message made clear there would be no debate; rather, he instructed his colleagues to vote by email, giving them just over 24 hours to respond.
The court’s conservatives approved the order within about an hour. Its two liberal justices, consigned to irrelevance, worked through the night with their clerks to complete a dissent by the deadline.
The pair were allowed little additional input when the justices met about a month and a half later in their elegant wood-paneled conference room to reach a decision on the case. After what a court staffer present that day called a “notably short conference,” Newby and his allies emerged victorious.
Newby then wrote a majority opinion declaring that partisan gerrymandering was legal and that the Democrat-led court had unconstitutionally infringed on the legislature’s prerogative to create electoral maps.
The decision freed GOP lawmakers to toss out electoral maps that had produced an evenly split North Carolina congressional delegation in 2022, reflecting the state’s balanced electorate.
In 2024, the state sent 10 Republicans and four Democrats to Congress — a six-seat swing that enabled the GOP to take control of the U.S. House of Representatives and handed Republicans, led by President Donald Trump, control of every branch of the federal government.
The gerrymandering push isn’t finished. This month, North Carolina Republican lawmakers passed a redistricting bill designed to give the party an additional congressional seat in the 2026 election….
ewby declined multiple interview requests from ProPublica and even had a reporter escorted out of a judicial conference to avoid questions. He also did not answer detailed written questions. The court system’s communications director and media team did not respond to multiple requests for comment or detailed written questions.
When ProPublica emailed questions to Newby’s daughter, the North Carolina Republican Party’s communications director, Matt Mercer, responded, writing that ProPublica was waging a “jihad” against “NC Republicans,” which would “not be met with dignifying any comments whatsoever.”
“I’m sure you’re aware of our connections with the Trump Administration and I’m sure they would be interested in this matter,” Mercer said in his email. “I would strongly suggest dropping this story.” …
“Inside the Clunky Elections to Control Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court”
In a sense, the GOP’s mission is straightforward: If voters remove Donohue, Dougherty, and Wecht, the current 5-2 Democratic majority would fall to a 2-2 tie. Republicans would then have a shot at winning an outright majority in the 2027 cycle, in time for the 2028 presidential election.
But in practice, this is a tall order.
Because these three judges are up for retention, they have no opponents. Pennsylvania voters will see the justices’ names on the ballot and face a choice for each: retain or fire. The state lists no partisan markers on retention ballots, even though justices are initially elected in partisan races.
Presented with such a choice, voters tend to overwhelmingly favor retention, treating it as the default option, which puts a heavy burden on the opposition. It’s been 20 years since any Pennsylvania state judge has even come within 22 percentage points of defeat.
And even if the justices are ousted in November, Republicans wouldn’t just take over the seats. The 2-2 tie that would result could become a prolonged stalemate that keeps the seats vacant through the fall of 2027, the next cycle with judicial elections.
That’s because any replacements for ousted justices would need to be nominated by the state’s Democratic governor, Josh Shapiro, and then approved by a supermajority in the Republican-controlled state Senate. The last time a vacancy arose, when a justice died in September of 2022, the seat just remained empty until voters chose a replacement in the November 2023 election; several Pennsylvania politicos told Bolts they expect the same thing would happen now.
Still, any seats vacated this year would go up for a regular election in 2027, which could hand the GOP a new, clear path to flipping the court that year. Without some success this year, and barring unexpected departures from the court, Republicans have virtually no path to a majority until 2029 at the earliest….
“State supreme court battles move to Pennsylvania, where 3 Democratic justices hope to keep seats”
There are no $1 million giveaways to voters, cheesehead hats or even candidate debates. Elon Musk is nowhere to be found.
Yet the stakes in the Pennsylvania election this fall are very much the same as they were in Wisconsin last spring: partisan control of the highest court in a crucial presidential swing state.
In November, Pennsylvania voters will decide whether three state Supreme Court justices — all Democrats — should keep their seats on a court that has been at the center of pivotal fights over voting rights, redistricting and elections.
Spending is nowhere near the $100 million spent in Wisconsin — a record amount for a state supreme court race, much of it fueled by groups aligned with billionaires Musk, who briefly worked in President Donald Trump’s Republican administration, and George Soros, a donor to liberal causes.
Even so, both parties in Pennsylvania are pouring in money for campaign flyers, digital and TV ads and get-out-the-vote efforts.
The state’s Supreme Court has a 5-2 Democratic majority, so an across-the-board loss for Democrats on Nov. 4 could leave the court in a partisan 2-2 stalemate for two years, including through next year’s midterm elections….
“A conservative Wisconsin Supreme Court justice won’t run again, creating an open seat”
Scott Bauer for AP:
A conservative justice on the Wisconsin Supreme Court said Friday that she will not seek reelection, creating an open race for a seat on the court that’s controlled 4-3 by liberals.
Justice Rebecca Bradley’s decision not to run for a second full term comes after conservative candidates for the highest court in the battleground state have lost each of the past two elections by double-digit margins. Both of those races broke national spending records and the liberal won in April despite heavy spending by billionaire Elon Musk.
Liberal state Supreme Court candidates have won four of the past five races, resulting in them taking over the majority in 2023, breaking a 15-year run of conservative control. Regardless of who wins the April election, liberals will maintain their 4-3 court majority until at least 2028. If they can win next year, their majority would increase to 5-2….
A few more pieces on today’s judicial elections in Mexico
The NYT has one all about ballot design.
And another replaying some debates about electing judges that will be very familiar to domestic versions of the same question.
And still another reviewing the political dynamics of the elections right now.
And the AP talks to some voters trying to wade through it all.
“Judicial Candidates Try TikTok and Tinder in Mexico’s Sprawling Elections”
I mentioned Mexico’s historic upcoming judicial elections a few days ago, but hadn’t then focused on the campaign finance regime. Now the NYT digs a little deeper:
They weren’t allowed to buy ads on television, radio, billboards or online. Mexico barred them from public funding or receiving campaign contributions. National debates were difficult, if not impossible, to mount.
So people running to be judges across Mexico were largely left with social media.
In one widely seen video, one Supreme Court candidate argued that he was as well seasoned as the fried pork sold on the streets. Another Supreme Court candidate styled herself Dora the Transformer, a spin on the cartoon character Dora the Explorer. Another Supreme Court candidate used dating apps so that, in his words, prospective voters could match with justice and then chat about the issues.
The strict campaign limits, in contrast to traditional rules for presidential or congressional elections, are part of Mexico’s sprawling, first-ever elections on Sunday. Voters will choose nearly 2,700 federal and state judicial positions at every level of the courts, with federal seats, like those on the Supreme Court, chosen at the national level and a host of officials elected locally.
DOJ files first voting complaint of new Administration – and it’s a follow-up to the Riggs/Griffin judicial race in NC
The Civil Rights Division is out with its first new voting case of the new Administration, and it comes directly out of the long-contested Riggs/Griffin race for the North Carolina Supreme Court.
In the Riggs/Griffin contest, there were three main categories of ballots contested after election day. The largest was a group of voters who allegedly never submitted driver’s license numbers or Social Security digits with their voter registration forms, in part because the state voter registration form at the time didn’t tell the voters they had to. There were reasons to believe that a sizable chunk of these voters actually did submit the relevant digits, which were just not captured in the state’s voter registration database (and other problems involving contesting not all of these voters, but only those voters who voted by mail, and contesting the ballots after the election). But I think it’s uncontested that the state voter registration form didn’t require the information that it should have, under HAVA, for some stretch of time.
[Update 5/29: the above paragraph used to say that the form “didn’t ask for the information,” which isn’t accurate: it was requested, but not required. h/t to Bob Hall for the correction.]
Now enter the DOJ. There’s a fair amount of throat-clearing in the complaint, but it boils down to an assertion that the state violated federal law by not requiring the right info when it registered voters. That … seems right.
What follows next is a little different: the remedy sought here is a bit legally tricky. Despite some early reports to the contrary, DOJ’s complaint does NOT assert that any voter should be purged or unregistered (and even if they were later to assert it, I don’t think that they have that authority). North Carolina was already in the process of fixing the voter registration form last year (and appears to have fixed it by now). The remedial portion that sticks out most is that DOJ wants to force the state to contact all North Carolina voters without a driver’s license number or Social Security digits in the system, to try to get the relevant numbers (and to just issue a unique ID number if they get no response), but it’s not clear that 1) all of the voters in the system without such a number actually failed to submit the right number, 2) that this is actually required by HAVA as a remedy, or 3) it would be all that big of a deal if the state sent such a note, properly phrased so as not to unnecessarily freak people out.
One saving grace: it’s extremely likely that there are large numbers of both Republicans and Democrats likely to be affected by the state’s glitch, and so unlike the cherry-picking in Judge Griffin’s contest, there’s reason for all actors involved not to be too terribly hamhanded about the resolution.
Judicial elections at home and abroad
The Kansas City Star reports the latest on a plan to switch from merit elections to direct elections for the Kansas Supreme Court.
Meanwhile, the International Crisis Group summarizes the landscape ahead of Mexico’s impending June 1 elections, when the country will, for the first time, elect close to 2600 judges.
“Jefferson Griffin concedes North Carolina Supreme Court race”
AP:
The Republican challenger for a North Carolina Supreme Court seat has conceded last November’s election to the Democratic incumbent.
Jefferson Griffin said in a statement to The Associated Press on Wednesday that he would not appeal a federal judge’s decision favoring Associate Justice Allison Riggs. Griffin’s decision sets the stage for Riggs to be officially elected to an eight-year term as an associate justice. It would end the nation’s last undecided race from the 2024 general election.
Breaking and Analysis: Federal District Court–in a Ruling Likely to Be Upheld on Appeal– Holds That Judge Griffin’s Attempt to Overturn the Results of the North Carolina Supreme Court Election Violates the Constitutional Rights of Voters and Orders Certification for Incumbent Justice Riggs
You can read the detailed analysis at this link. Here is the core holding:
The court concludes that the retroactive invalidation of absentee ballots cast by overseas military and civilian voters violates their substantive due process rights, and that the cure process violates their equal protection rights. The court further concludes that the lack of any cure process for individuals erroneously designated as Never Residents violates their procedural due process rights and represents an unconstitutional burden on the right to vote. Based on those conclusions, the State Board may not implement the stated cure process or “remove” the votes of all Never Residents “from the final count of the 2024 election for Supreme Court Seat 6.”
In the remedy portion of the order, the court orders Justice Riggs to be certified the winner. The ruling is on hold for 7 days to give Judge Griffin a chance to appeal to the 4th Circuit (and then potentially to the U.S. Supreme Court).
I expect any appeal would be rejected. Although part of the due process portion of the court’s analysis rests on Bush v. Gore, and not every court would agree on reading Bush v. Gore in this way, the due process arguments are nonetheless extremely strong even without relying on that case. And the equal protection arguments are even stronger.
The idea of retroactively changing the rules for which ballots should count—and applying those retroactive rules just selectively in places where the challenging candidate expects to gain relative votes—sure is unconstitutional in any election system that values the rule of law. The only surprise (and disappointment) here is that the North Carolina Supreme Court was willing to bless this attempted election subversion.
“A Lengthy Legal Battle in North Carolina Could Show How to Flip an Election”
For months, Republicans in North Carolina have tried to do what President Trump and his allies could not in 2020: overturn an election that did not go their way.
What began as a sprawling effort to throw out 65,000 votes from the state’s Supreme Court election in November has shrunk to a legal skirmish over a small fraction of those ballots. But even as Republicans’ path to victory has narrowed, the final outcome still hangs in the balance.
And even if the Democratic candidate’s victory is not reversed, the battle may have sketched a blueprint for overturning future elections.
Never before, legal experts from both parties say, has a losing candidate gained so much legal traction in trying to nullify votes cast by people who followed every instruction given to them, both when they registered to vote and when they submitted their ballots. Federal and state judges have shown a willingness to entertain Republican challenges of votes in Democratic-leaning areas that focused on technicalities and sought to reinterpret voting laws long after Election Day.
The episode, which in many ways is an acceleration of the right-wing movement challenging the 2020 presidential election, could encourage election challenges from candidates who lose fairly but are inclined to fight the outcome. More races could be subject to litigation after the polls close, as candidates try to wipe out votes with help from friendly courts and deep-pocketed legal campaigns.
“The stakes are far greater than one seat on the State Supreme Court,” said Bob Orr, who served on the North Carolina Supreme Court as a Republican but has since left the party to become unaffiliated. He likened some of the recent judicial decisions clearing a path for votes to be tossed out retroactively to “opening up a Pandora’s box.”
“You’ve got a set of rules, and you don’t wait until the ballgame is over and then say, ‘Oh, by the way, I think we need to change the rules and change the score,’” Mr. Orr added….
“Long-running legal saga over N.C. Supreme Court race could pave way for future election challenges, critics warn”
Nearly six months after the North Carolina Supreme Court election took place, the contest still hasn’t been called and a winner still hasn’t been certified.
That’s almost entirely due to a barrage of litigation from Republican candidate Jefferson Griffin, who sued for more than 65,000 ballots to be thrown out after they had been cast, triggering a sprawling legal saga that is testing some of the most solid precedents of election law. The effort, if successful, could be more than enough to swing the results of the election, as Griffin currently trails Democratic incumbent Allison Riggs by roughly 700 votes.
But even if the push ultimately falls short, Griffin’s critics, who include members of both parties, say it could have long-lasting consequences and pave the way for more candidates to pursue challenges — no matter how legally questionable — to the results of elections decided by narrow margins.
“NC voters wait while a battle over ballots they cast six months ago rages”
Chris Marshall took care to cast a ballot last fall while in France tending to his business, and was surprised to find months after the 2024 election that Judge Jefferson Griffin wanted his vote thrown out.
Griffin challenged Marshall and thousands of other military and overseas absentee voters who did not provide photo ID with their ballots. The State Board of Elections did not require it. Most military and civilian overseas voters cast ballots using a special portal that does not provide a way to include a photo.
Griffin worked to have their votes in the Supreme Court race tossed, but the state Supreme Court said they should have a chance to submit IDs.
Now back home in Durham, Marshall and his wife Moira Smullen tried to address the problem by checking to see if they could submit photos using the same electronic portal they used to vote. They couldn’t.
“Right now, it’s just wait and see what happens,” he said.