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THIS ELECTION’S SURPRISING BRIGHT SPOT FOR PROGRESSIVES  
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Mark Joseph Stern
November 19, 2024
Slate
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_ Progressives didn’t win a clean sweep in state high court
battles, but they emerged with an impressive scorecard, carrying
seats in battlegrounds like Michigan and safely red states like
Kentucky and Montana. _

Justice Allison Riggs, Riggs for Our Courts/YouTube

 

The 2024 election marked a painful setback for Democratic hopes of
rebalancing the federal judiciary: When Donald Trump reenters the
White House in January, he will have a pliant Republican Senate
majority eager to confirm his hard-right judges. But federal courts
don’t tell the whole story: Across the country, voters also elected
liberal justices to their _state _Supreme Courts, which function as
a key backstop for civil rights and democracy as federal courts lurch
rightward. Progressives didn’t win a clean sweep, but they
emerged with an impressive scorecard
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seats in battlegrounds like Michigan and safely red states like
Kentucky and Montana. Left-leaning judicial candidates even prevailed
in deep-red Arkansas and Mississippi, bucking the national shift
rightward. And a progressive jurist is now leading the tally heading
into a recount in an extraordinarily close race for the North Carolina
Supreme Court, with a victory there promising to end the left’s
painful losing streak on that bench and serve as a capstone for the
one piece of the 2024 election where progressives actually flourished.

How did these judges pull it off? Abortion surely played a role: State
courts have immense leeway to expand or curtail reproductive rights in
a post–_Roe v. Wade _world, and liberal judges have perfected the
art of running on abortion. More broadly, these judges—frequently
with the help of Democratic strategists and a financial boost from
progressive groups—have learned to run more effective campaigns that
mobilize voters who don’t pay close attention to the courts. By
doing so, they may have gained an edge among the Democratic Party’s
current coalition of educated, high-propensity voters, who will take
part in down-ballot races that many Trump supporters seem to
ignore—apparently even when Trump is on the ticket.

This shifting dynamic is perhaps most evident in North Carolina, a
swing state that Trump carried by about 3 points. Despite Trump’s
triumph at the top of the ticket, Democrats prevailed in other
statewide races, including governor, attorney general, and secretary
of state. And the party had another key objective this cycle: Breaking
the cycle of losses on the North Carolina Supreme Court. Just four
years ago, liberals held a 6–1 majority on this court. In 2020 and
2022, however, Republicans narrowly flipped four seats, establishing a
5–2 conservative majority. This year, Justice Allison Riggs, a
Democrat, sought to stop the bleeding by holding down her seat against
a Republican challenger, Jefferson Griffin. Her victory would create a
path for progressives to flip back the court in 2028.

On election night, it looked like Riggs might narrowly lose. But as
counties tallied provisional ballots, she took the lead and now holds
an edge
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about 625 votes over Griffin. There will be
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recount, but right now, the odds are in Riggs’ favor.

If she does prevail, Riggs’ victory can be attributed to a few
important factors. It certainly helped that many North Carolinians
cast their vote for Trump but skipped the judicial race. But Riggs
also ran a shrewd campaign that focused on substantive issues, first
and foremost abortion. In a conversation with Slate
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the election, Riggs explained the tension of competing in a partisan
election while maintaining impartiality as a judge. While she could
not say how she would decide any particular case, she talked openly
with voters about her “values,” including reproductive rights.
(North Carolina enacted stringent new abortion restrictions last
year.) In one ad
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“Our freedom to decide when and how we start our families is at
stake in this election. For me, it’s personal. I’m 43 and hope to
start my own family. … I’ll always guard your right to start and
grow your family in safety and peace.” Her candor on abortion
prompted Republican legislators to file a frivolous ethics complaint
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the justice, which Griffin weaponized
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paint her as corrupt. Their cynical gambit seems to have failed.

Riggs’ strategy followed the playbook perfected in 2023 by Judge
Janet Protasiewicz in her race for the Wisconsin Supreme Court.
Protasiewicz won her race and flipped the high court
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a liberal majority by running on her “values,” including
reproductive autonomy and voting rights. Her campaign repudiated the
model once preferred by left-leaning judges—including Lisa Neubauer,
who lost a seat
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the same court in 2019—which leaned on generic promises
of independence and impartiality
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While this abstract platform was meant to maintain compliance with
judicial ethics, it gave voters the impression that Democratic
candidates did not really stand for anything. The Protasiewicz
campaign abandoned that model, instead laying out the stakes of the
election in concrete, human terms. Protasiewicz easily won her race.
Now Riggs is poised to win hers, too.

A similar strategy in another battleground, Michigan, helped
progressives grow their majority on the state Supreme Court this year
even as Trump carried the state. Liberals currently hold a 4–3
majority on the bench, and Republicans had a chance to flip it in
November. One liberal incumbent, Justice Kyra Harris Bolden, faced a
Republican challenger, Patrick O’Grady. And the race for an open
seat pitted the progressive Kimberly Anne Thomas against Republican
state Rep. Andrew Fink.

On Election Day, Bolden and Thomas each won by more than 20 points,
with backing from outside groups
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including Planned Parenthood and the ACLU. In advertisements, these
groups told voters that Bolden and Thomas could be trusted to enforce
Michigan’s new constitutional amendment protecting abortion
rights—while O’Grady and Fink would “take abortion rights
away.” Bolden and Thomas’ blowout victories indicate that the
message resonated with Michiganders who care about reproductive
freedom. And, as in North Carolina, both nominees may have benefited
from the fact that many Trump voters appear to have skipped this race
altogether.

Running as a champion of women’s right to bodily autonomy doesn’t
only work in purple states: It also paid off in Montana, which Trump
carried by about 20 points. Two left-leaning justices are retiring
from the Montana Supreme Court, threatening its liberal
majority—which has staunchly protected individual rights
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including abortion, as the state has swung rightward. Two progressive
candidates, Jerry Lynch and Katherine Bidegaray, ran for the open
seats against conservatives Cory Swanson and Dan Wilson. Both groups
received support from outside groups, but their own campaign tactics
differed. Lynch, who’s 73, ran as a moderate eager to “work
cooperatively
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with the GOP Legislature. Bidegaray ran as a progressive who bemoaned
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attacks” on individual rights, “particularly women’s rights.”
She promised voters she would have “the backbone to stand up to
these kinds of assaults.”

Bidegaray won; Lynch lost. Bidegaray’s victory marked a bright spot
for Democrats, and preserves a liberal majority on the Montana Supreme
Court that will fight legislative assaults on women, LGBTQ+ people,
the environment, and other Republican targets. The same voters who
elected Bidegaray to office also enshrined
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explicit right to abortion in their state constitution. A large number
of Trump supporters crossed over to support the pro-choice judicial
candidate and ballot measure.

Left-leaning judges pulled off wins in states where Trump won an even
bigger margin. Look, for instance, at Arkansas, where two current
members of the state Supreme Court, Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker, faced
off for the chief justiceship. In August, Wood wrote the majority
opinion
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an abortion rights initiative from the ballot on a dubious
technicality; Baker wrote a scorching dissent
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asking, pointedly, why the majority was so “determined to keep this
particular vote from the people.” Although Baker sits on the left
flank of the court, she identified as the true judicial conservative
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the campaign trail, promoting restraint and respect for the will of
the people. Wood’s anti-abortion ruling, and Baker’s sharp dissent
from it, loomed large
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the race. In the end, Baker prevailed by more than 5 points.

Or look at Kentucky, where voters elected Pamela Goodwine, the first
Black woman to serve on the state Supreme Court. Goodwine ran to
replace Justice Laurance VanMeter, a conservative on the brink of
retirement. In addition to touting her extraordinary qualifications
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she savvily aligned herself with the popular Democratic Gov. Andy
Beshear, who himself won reelection last year by touting support for
abortion. Goodwine also outraised her conservative opponent, Erin
Izzo, and drew $1 million
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spending from progressive groups on her behalf. She prevailed by a
startlingly massive margin of more than 50 points, handily flipping
the seat.

The most shocking judicial race in the country, though, played out in
Mississippi, where attorney David P. Sullivan challenged
ultra-conservative state Supreme Court Justice Dawn Beam—and
won. By his own admission
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Sullivan “came out of nowhere” (although his father served as a
Mississippi Supreme Court justice). He correctly sensed that Beam was
a weak candidate: The justice’s record is extreme even by
Mississippi standards; for instance, she notoriously voted to nullify
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state’s entire ballot initiative process. Beam also touted her
endorsement from the Mississippi Republican Party, a breach of
protocol in a formally nonpartisan race. Sullivan, by contrast, served
as a public defender, and ran as an outsider and a populist with an
interest
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criminal justice reform. He won by about 10 points.

There were, of course, also setbacks on Election Day for progressive
judicial candidates. Republicans won three races
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the Ohio Supreme Court, entrenching a 6–1 conservative majority.
Justice Yvonne Kauger, a liberal lion on the Oklahoma Supreme
Court, lost a retention vote
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conservative groups launched an expensive campaign
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her. (Kauger voted to protect
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in need of emergency abortions last year.) Progressives, by contrast,
failed to knock off conservative justices who faced retention
elections in several purple states, including Arizona.

The overall trend, though, is a positive one for Democrats, with
plenty of signs that voters on the left and center are paying more
attention to these races. Abortion surely helped to activate voters in
a post-_Roe _landscape where state Supreme Courts have the final word
on reproductive rights. Progressive groups and the Democratic Party
also spent millions of dollars to push candidates over the finish
line. And the left probably benefited from “bullet voters
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who showed up to support Trump then ignored the other races. Candidate
quality matters, too: A strong campaigner like Riggs can eke out a
victory through moving, personal appeals to voters who are mostly
tuned out from politics.

And Democrats have plenty of opportunities to fine-tune their
approach: April will bring (another) election
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the Wisconsin Supreme Court, which will (again) determine the balance
of power on the bench. Trump may entrench a conservative majority in
the federal judiciary for generations. But in states around the
country, progressives’ fight for control of the courts will
grind on.

MARK JOSEPH STERN [[link removed]] is a
Slate senior writer.

_Slate [[link removed]] is an online magazine of news, politics,
technology, and culture. Combines humor and insight in thoughtful
analyses of current events and political news. Choose the newsletters
you want [[link removed]] to get the Slatest._

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