A costly campaign by abortion-rights advocates for state Supreme Court seats yielded mixed results in last week’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.
Groups on both the right and left spent millions in the leadup to the election hoping to reshape courts that will 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 last 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.
