Abortion-rights groups see mixed success in races for state Supreme Court seats

A costly campaign by abortion-rights advocates for state Supreme Court seats yielded mixed results in Tuesday's election, with Republicans expanding their majority on Ohio's court while candidates backed by progressive groups won in Montana and Michigan.

One of the most expensive and closely watched Supreme Court races in North Carolina, where a Democratic justice campaigned heavily on abortion rights and Republicans hope to expand their majority, remained too early to call Thursday.

Groups on both the right and left spent millions in the leadup to the election hoping to reshape courts that'll be battlegrounds for voting rights, redistricting, abortion and other issues.

Abortion-rights supporters touted victories in states that Donald Trump won, saying it's a sign that reproductive rights will be key in judicial campaigns after the U.S. Supreme Court's 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In states like Montana and Arizona, state courts may soon be tasked with interpreting how abortion-rights amendments voters passed this week would impact existing laws.

“State Supreme Court judges don't really have anything to say about the economy, but they certainly do have something to say about reproductive rights and voting rights and democracy and what your life is going to be like from a right to liberty perspective in your state," said Deirdre Schifeling, chief political and advocacy officer for the American Civil Liberties Union. “So I think we have a real opportunity to define these judges and this level of the ballot by reproductive rights.”

The ACLU spent $5.4 million on court races in Montana, Michigan, North Carolina and Ohio. Planned Parenthood and the National Democratic Redistricting Committee earlier this year announced they were collectively spending $5 million, focusing on court races in those states, as well as in Arizona and Texas.

Conservative groups also spent heavily in those states, but with ads focusing on issues other than abortion such as immigration and crime.

In Ohio, all three Democrats running for the state Supreme Court lost their race. The victory gives Republicans a 6-1 majority on the court. A county judge in October struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban and the state Supreme Court is expected to hear more cases aiming to undo regulations that, for example, require 24-hour waiting periods or in-person appointments for patients.

“Ohioans made a strong statement tonight that will keep the court under Republican control for years to come,” said Dee Duncan, president of the Republican State Leadership Committee's Judicial Fairness Initiative, which spent nearly $1 million on the race.

Michigan Democrats won two seats on the state’s Supreme Court, expanding their majority to 5-2. While the elections are nonpartisan, parties nominate the candidates.

“With the liberal majority protected, Michigan Dems’ hard work past and future will not be threatened by the MAGA fanatics that threaten our values here in Michigan,” Chair of the Michigan Democratic Party Lavora Barnes said in a statement.

In North Carolina, Justice Allison Riggs trailed narrowly Court of Appeals Judge Jefferson Griffin in their race for an eight-year term on the state’s highest court. The Associated Press has not called the race, for which nearly 5.5 million ballots have been counted. Tens of thousands of additional provisional and absentee ballots still had to be reviewed by county election officials, and the trailing candidate could seek a recount if the final margin is narrow enough.

Riggs' campaign focused on reproductive rights, running ads that said Griffin could be a deciding vote on the 5-2 majority Republican court for further abortion restrictions. Griffin had said it was inappropriate for Riggs to talk about an issue that could come before the court.

Heated bids for a pair of seats on Montana's court were a split decision, with county attorney Cory Swanson defeating former U.S. Magistrate Judge Jerry Lynch for chief justice. State judge Katherine Bidegaray defeated state judge Dan Wilson for another open seat on the court.

Progressive groups backed Lynch and Bidegaray, casting the races as key to protecting abortion rights in a state where Republicans control the Legislature and the governor's office. Republicans who complained about the court's rulings against laws that would have restricted abortion access or made it more difficult to vote supported Swanson and Wilson.

A longshot effort by abortion-rights advocates to unseat three justices on Texas' all-Republican Supreme Court fell short, with Jimmy Blacklock, John Devine and Jane Bland winning reelection. The three were part of unanimous rulings rejecting challenges to the state’s abortion ban.

In Arizona, two justices won retention elections despite efforts to oust them over the court decision that cleared way for a long-dormant 1864 law banning nearly all abortions to be enforced. The state Legislature swiftly repealed it, and voters on Tuesday approved a constitutional amendment guaranteeing abortion access up to fetal viability, typically after 21 weeks.

Conservatives also won in Oklahoma, where voters removed one of three Supreme Court justices appointed by a former Democratic governor who were up for retention. A 5-4 ruling by the court last year overturned a portion of the state’s near total ban on abortion. It was the first time any Oklahoma appellate judge had been removed through a retention election.

An Arkansas justice who wrote a blistering dissent when the court's Republican-backed majority blocked an abortion rights measure from the ballot was elected chief justice. That race, however, won't change the court's majority.

The next big battleground comes next year in Wisconsin, where a race will determine whether liberals maintain their 4-3 majority on the court. The open race for retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley's seat comes after the court flipped from conservative control in a 2023 election marked by record-breaking spending.

“It doesn’t seem like state Supreme Court elections are going to go back to the way they were 10 years ago anytime soon,” said Douglas Keith, senior counsel in the judiciary program at the Brennan Center, which has tracked spending on state court races.

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Associated Press writers Christine Fernando in Washington, Gary Robertson in Raleigh, North Carolina, Isabella Volmert in Lansing, Michigan, Sean Murphy in Oklahoma City, Amy Beth Hanson in Helena, Montana, and Julie Carr Smyth in Columbus, Ohio, contributed to this report.

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This story was first published on Nov. 7, 2024. It was updated on Nov. 11, 2024 to correct that an an Ohio county judge, not the state Supreme Court, struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban.