State Supreme Court Races to Follow in 2025

State supreme court races were a major focal point in the 2024 general election, as parties and partisan interest groups pumped millions into campaigns in an attempt to gain ideological control of the courts. Justices in Michigan, Ohio and North Carolina toed the line of maintaining their impartiality as jurists while making their case to voters. The outcome of those races will almost certainly impact democracy.

In states that held partisan elections, like North Carolina, pro-voting advocates hoped securing liberal majorities would help advance the fight for fair maps and expanding voting access. If 2024 is any indication, next year’s races in Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Louisiana will be just as consequential.

Wisconsin

In 2023, the match between then-Democratic Wisconsin Supreme Court candidate Janet Protasiewicz and conservative opponent Daniel Kelly marked the nation’s most expensive judicial race. Abortion rights and gerrymandering were central to Protasiewicz’s platform, and she didn’t shy away from expressing her views.

The campaign and the national attention surrounding it won’t be a one-off, experts said. “I think Supreme Court races have become as important as any other race,” Barry Burden, a political science professor at UW-Madison, told Democracy Docket. “It’s become the one election that really decides the direction of the state.”

In 2025, Dane County Circuit Court Judge Susan Crawford, a liberal judge seeking to replace retiring Justice Ann Walsh Bradley, will run against former Republican state Attorney General Brad Schimel, a Waukesha County judge.

At stake is the court’s current 4-3 liberal majority. If Crawford succeeds, she’d maintain Democratic control of the court. A Schimel victory would flip the court back to conservative control. Whoever wins in April will serve a 10-year term. 

Last year’s race illustrated the heightened focus on state supreme courts after the 2022 overturning of Roe, which sent abortion regulation back to the states. But reproductive rights are one of many statewide issues that could come before Wisconsin’s high court.

Earlier this year, for instance, the court’s newly liberal majority agreed to reconsider the 2022 ruling by a conservative majority that banned the use of drop boxes throughout the state. The court later overturned the prohibition.

One expert told Democracy Docket that gerrymandering is sure to be an animating issue in the race. The Associated Press reported that union rights could also play an outsized role in spurring voters to the ballot box. 

Pennsylvania

Pennsylvania Democrats kept control of the seven-member court in 2023, when Daniel McCaffery defeated GOP opponent Judge Carolyn Carluccio and secured the court’s 5-2 liberal majority. Nearly $20 million was spent in the race, according to the Pennsylvania Capital-Star, a record for the state.

Next year, three of the court’s four Democratic justices — Christine Donohue, David Wecht and Kevin Dougherty — will be up for reelection since their 10-year terms are expiring in 2026. If the justices seek another term, they’ll run in a retention election, which happens when a justice has served for a decade.

Voters in November will decide whether to reelect them, but no political affiliation will be listed.

The court’s makeup was especially critical in an election year, with the high court deciding a case that blocked the counting of certain votes. The court concluded that mail-in ballots with missing or incorrect outer envelope dates cast in the November 2024 election cannot be counted. The bench was split, though, with Donohue and two other Democratic justices dissenting.

That ruling ended up impacting the state’s tight Senate race between incumbent Democratic Sen. Bob Casey and GOP challenger Dave McCormick, which had extended past Election Day due to the tight margin.

McCormick and the Republican National Committee had challenged the Monroe County Board of Election’s decision to count 42 mail-in ballots submitted with undated or wrongly dated outer envelopes. A lower court ruled that the 42 ballots shouldn’t be counted, citing the high court’s ruling.

Casey later conceded.

Louisiana

In Louisiana, a state overrun by redistricting battles this year, a special partisan election will be held to replace Supreme Court Associate Justice James Genovese (R), who stepped down in August to lead Northwestern State University. He was temporarily replaced by retired Justice Jeannette Knoll.

His departure left an opening on the court’s third district that’s expected to be filled in a primary set for March 29. If a candidate garners more than 50% of the vote, they’ll win the seat. If not, the top two candidates will go on to compete in a general election.

Whoever wins the special election will serve the remainder of Genovese’s unexpired term. A subsequent election will be held in 2026 for a 10-year term representing that Supreme Court district. That term will begin Jan. 1, 2027.

No other candidates are currently seeking the role, but the political affiliation of whoever prevails may not change much on the seven-member court, which currently has just one Democrat.

Earlier this year, several Democratic candidates sought a newly-created, hard-won second majority-Black seat on the high court. Appellate Judge John Michael Guidry (D) in May announced his bid for the District 2 seat, and won in August after his opponents were disqualified.

Guidry told the Louisiana Illuminator in July that his job “is not to legislate, but my job is to make sure that whatever laws are made are made in accordance with our constitution.”

Louisiana has seven supreme court districts, but the previous map was redrawn in May to allow the state’s Black voters to potentially elect their candidate of choice in two of those districts: District 2, which contains parts of Baton Rouge, and District 7 based in New Orleans. Justice-elect Guidry will begin his 10-year term on the court Jan. 1. 

Read more about this year’s state supreme court races.

This story was corrected to show that the Louisiana candidate who wins the special election in 2025 will serve the remainder of Genovese’s term, not a 10-year term.