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."
