A guide to this year's intermediate appellate court elections
A guide to this year's intermediate appellate court elections
State courts matter, and intermediate appellate courts do, too!
Elections for state supreme courts have finally begun to receive more of the attention they deserve, but thousands of other judicial elections in the United States—which have an enormous impact on how justice is dispensed—remain largely overlooked.
Many of these races are nearly as important as those for supreme courts, particularly elections for intermediate appellate courts. These bodies, which typically sit between the trial courts where disputes are first heard and the supreme courts that hold the power of final review, collectively hear far more cases than supreme courts. In many proceedings, therefore, those intermediate courts wind up having the last word.
When cases do proceed to a state's highest court, the appeals courts also play a key role in teeing up the issues for further review. A cogently written ruling—or a thoughtful dissent—at the intermediate level can have a big impact on how the justices decide a case. At the same time, the vast majority of state court cases end with the court of appeals. Like the U.S. Supreme Court, state supreme courts take only a fraction of the cases that are appealed to them.
And some appellate courts have special areas of jurisdiction that make them arbiters over broad areas of the law. For instance, Alabama has separate appellate courts—the Court of Civil Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals—that handle different types of appeals.
This year, many states will hold elections for their appellate courts, some at the statewide level and some by district. These races include partisan elections, nonpartisan elections, and retention elections. Below is my guide to the partisan and nonpartisan races. I've provided the current partisan breakdown for every court, as well as the results of the 2020 presidential election for the relevant jurisdiction, where possible to calculate.
Alabama
Court of Civil Appeals: 5R-0D
Court of Criminal Appeals: 5R-0D
(Trump 62-37%)
Unlike most states, Alabama has two separate intermediate appellate courts, the Court of Civil Appeals and the Court of Criminal Appeals, which hear cases depending on the subject matter. Candidates are elected to both courts in statewide, partisan elections for six-year terms. There are three seats up on each court; in each of the six races this year, the Republican nominee is unopposed in the general election.
Arkansas
District 6
(Biden 51-46%) • Little Rock
The Arkansas Court of Appeals is divided into seven districts, and judges are elected in nonpartisan elections for eight-year terms. One seat is up this year, Position 1 in District 6, which is based in metropolitan Little Rock. Judge Rita Gruber is retiring, and there are two candidates in the general election: Molly McNulty, a law clerk to Judge Raymond Abramson, a member of the court, and Judge Casey Tucker of the 6th Judicial Circuit. The candidates’ ideologies are difficult to figure out, making the stakes are unclear.
Illinois
Illinois uses a complex system to elect members of its Appellate Court. When a vacancy occurs, the state Supreme Court appoints a judge to temporarily fill it, and a partisan election is scheduled at the next general election. In subsequent terms, judges who win those partisan elections then face an up-or-down retention election for a ten-year term. Additionally, at the Supreme Court’s discretion, it can “assign” a lower-court judge to the Appellate Court to help relieve the court’s caseload.
The Appellate Court is divided into five districts, which are also used to elect members of the state Supreme Court. They were dramatically redrawn in 2021 for the first time in decades to rebalance a severe population imbalance.
The safely blue 1st District is based in Cook County, home to Chicago, while the 2nd and 3rd districts are both blue-trending areas in the Chicago suburbs. The 2nd District includes northern and western suburbs and voted for Biden by a 56-42% margin, yet has a commanding majority of Republican judges; the 3rd District supported Biden by a narrower margin yet is represented by more Democratic judges than Republicans.
The 4th District, meanwhile, is a dark-red swath of the state that includes much of the northern and central parts of the state. Finally, the 5th District includes downstate Illinois and, though ancestrally Democratic, is now reliably Republican. The only contested elections this year are in the 3rd District, which are outlined below.
3rd District
4D-2R (Biden 53-45%) • Western/southern Chicago suburbs, north-central Illinois
This suburban district has more recently started voting for Democrats, though with a smaller Democratic advantage than in the neighboring 2nd. Of its six permanent judges, four are Democrats and two are Republicans; there’s also a temporarily assigned judge who is a Democrat.
There are three open seats this year, with competitive elections for each of them:
To replace Democrat Tom Lytton (retired): Incumbent Judge Joseph Hettel, temporarily appointed by the Supreme Court to fill Lytton’s seat until this year’s election, was defeated by Circuit Court Judge John Anderson in the Democratic primary. Anderson faces Circuit Court Judge Kenton Skarin, the Republican nominee, in the general election.
To replace Democrat Mary Kay O’Brien (resigned after winning election to the Supreme Court in 2022): Incumbent Judge Linda Davenport, the temporary appointee, is the Democratic nominee. She faces Circuit Court Judge Jason Helland, the Republican nominee, in the general election.
To replace Republican Daniel Schmidt, who died in 2022: Incumbent Judge Lance Peterson, the temporary appointee, is the Democratic nominee. He faces Republican nominee John F. Costello, Jr., an assistant general counsel for JPMorgan Chase, in the general election.
Kentucky
District 1
(Trump 69-29%) • Southwestern Kentucky
The Kentucky Court of Appeals is divided into seven districts, which are also used to elect members of the Supreme Court. Judges are elected in nonpartisan elections for eight-year terms. Only one seat is up for election this year, in the conservative 1st District based in southwestern Kentucky.
Judge Lisa Payne Jones was appointed to the court earlier this year by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear after previously serving on the Daviess County Circuit Court. She’s opposed by Jason Shea Fleming, who currently serves on the Christian County Circuit Court.
The race is nonpartisan, which will likely help Jones—who has support from progressive-affiliated organizations like the AFL-CIO—in a difficult campaign against Fleming, who railed against “activist” judges and proclaimed himself “the conservative candidate to be your next judge on the Kentucky Court of Appeals” at Fancy Farm, the state’s well-known political picnic
Despite Donald Trump's daunting margin in the district, Beshear kept it much closer during his successful bid for reelection last year, losing 55-45 to his Republican opponent.
Louisiana
Like many states, Louisiana has separate intermediate appellate courts for different geographic regions of the state, as shown on this interactive map. The 1st Circuit Court of Appeal is based in southeastern Louisiana and includes the Florida Parishes and eastern Acadiana. The 2nd Circuit is based in northern Louisiana. The 3rd Circuit includes central Louisiana and western Acadiana. The 4th and 5th circuits include metropolitan New Orleans; the 4th Circuit is home to Orleans Parish and the city’s eastern suburbs, and the 5th Circuit includes the western suburbs.
However, it’s more complicated than that. Each circuit is further subdivided into three districts. Then, in some districts, there’s a further subdivision into “subdistricts” or “election sections.” In most circuits, these districts are set by law, but in the 1st Circuit, they’re set by a 1991 federal court order.
Members of the circuit courts are elected in partisan elections to ten-year terms. And, like virtually all other officeholders in the state, they’re elected using Louisiana’s unique electoral system—all-party primaries, where all candidates, regardless of party affiliation, appear on the same ballot, and a runoff election is held if no candidate gets a majority of the vote.
However, because the large number of divisions and subdivisions under each circuit,, these elections are usually uncompetitive, if not simply uncontested. To that end, this year, there are only two elections for circuit court in the entire state—one a Republican-versus-Republican matchup and the other a Republican-versus-Democrat race in potentially swingy turf. Being unopposed, the remaining incumbent judges have already won re-election and will not appear on the ballot.
1st Circuit
11R-1D • Southeastern Louisiana
The 1st Circuit includes most of southeastern Louisiana—the Florida Parishes and eastern Acadiana. Its internal districts largely break down on cultural lines: District 1 includes the Acadiana parishes; District 2 is East Baton Rouge Parish; and District 3 includes the Florida Parishes. Though there are several seats up this year, there is only one contested race.
Second District, Subdistrict 1 • Suburban Baton Rouge
Within District 2 are subdistricts: Subdistrict 2 includes most of the city of Baton Rouge and is a Black-majority constituency, while Subdistrict 1 includes the rest of East Baton Rouge Parish. Subdistrict 1 is trending toward Democrats and was very closely divided in the 2020 presidential race. In recent years, it’s hosted the only close elections in the 1st Circuit. In 2020, Republican Christopher Hester defeated Democrat Melanie Newkome Jones just 52-48%, and in 2022, Republican Hunter Green defeated Democrat Don Johnson 54-46%.
It’s possible that a Democrat could flip this district, but it’s difficult to see that happening this year. Judge Jewel “Duke” Welch, a Republican, is barred from seeking re-election due to age limits. The two candidates on the ballot—Democrat Eboni Johnson Rose and Kelly Balfour—are both judges on the 19th Judicial District Court.
Rose, who would be the first Black judge elected from this majority-white subdistrict, said that something that “fueled her run was challenging the notion that Black candidates can win only in predominantly minority voting districts.” However, during the campaign, the Louisiana Supreme Court temporarily suspended Rose from her position following allegations by the state Judiciary Commission that she had violated the Code of Judicial Conduct.
3rd Circuit
7R-4D-1I • Central Louisiana and western Acadiana
The 3rd Circuit includes most of central Louisiana and the western Acadiana parishes. It is divided into three districts: District 1 is based in central Louisiana; District 2 is based in southwestern Louisiana, including the city of Lake Charles; and District 3 is based in Acadiana, including Lafayette. Two seats are up this year, but only one is contested.
Second District, Election Section 2 • Southwestern Louisiana
The 2nd District stretches from Fort Johnson to Lake Charles in southwestern Louisiana. It is further subdivided into two election sections: Section 1 is a Black-majority district that includes most of Lake Charles and stretches into the nearby city of Jennings in Jefferson Davis Parish. Election Section 2 includes the rest of the district. Incumbent Republican Judge D. Kent Savoie is barred from seeking re-election due to age limits. To replace him, there are two Republican candidates on the ballot: 30th Judicial District Court Judge C. Anthony Eaves and 14th Judicial District Court Judge Clayton Davis.
Michigan
The Michigan Court of Appeals elects judges from four different districts in nonpartisan elections to six-year terms. The 1st District stretches from Detroit in southeastern Michigan to Kalamazoo in the southwest. The 2nd District includes the northern suburbs of Detroit in Macomb and Oakland counties, as well as the city of Flint.
The 3rd District stretches from Ann Arbor in the southeast to the southwest corner of the state in Berrien County and then up to Grand Rapids and Ludington. Finally, the 4th District includes the rest of the state: Lansing and the rest of the Capital Region, Port Huron, Saginaw, and the Upper Peninsula.
All candidates run in the August primary election, with the top candidates—the number of which depends on how many seats are up for election—advancing to a runoff. Of the four districts, only the 2nd District has a contested race.
2nd District
Northern Detroit suburbs and Flint
There are three seats up this year. Two new judges—Adrienne Young and Randy Wallace, both recent appointees of Gov. Gretchen Whitmer—are running for re-election unopposed.
There’s also an open seat, created by the retirement of Judge Kathleen Jansen. Two candidates are facing off in the general election: Matthew Ackerman, a land-use attorney, and Latoya Willis, a prosecutor in the Wayne County Prosecutor’s office. Ackerman is supported by many of the state’s most prominent Republicans (as well as Democratic Supreme Court Justice Richard Bernstein) while Willis is endorsed by progressive-affiliated groups like the Michigan Education Association and AFL-CIO.
Minnesota
The Minnesota Court of Appeals has nineteen members who are elected in nonpartisan elections to six-year terms. This year, seven judges are running for re-election. Six of them face no opposition. Judge Diane Bratvold, who was appointed to the bench in 2016 by former Democratic Gov. Mark Dayton, is opposed by Jonathan Woolsey, who has worked as a contract attorney, in the general election. The race has attracted little attention, and Bratvold is likely to win.
Mississippi
The Mississippi Court of Appeals consists of 10 judges elected to eight-year terms from five separate districts. District 1 includes most of north Mississippi; District 2 includes most of the Delta; District 3 includes the Golden Triangle and the east-central region; District 4 is based in the southwest; and District 5 includes the Pine Belt and the Gulf Coast.
The candidates run in nonpartisan elections, and if no candidate receives a majority of the vote, a runoff election will take place on Nov. 26 between the top two finalists. Three seats are up this year, but only one of them features a contested race,which seems likely to go to a runoff. The seats in the 2nd and 3rd districts are unopposed.
5th District
Pine Belt and Gulf Coast
The Fifth District includes the Gulf Coast of Mississippi as well as most of the Pine Belt, including Biloxi, Gulfport, and Hattiesburg. Judge Joel Smith, who was appointed to this seat in just 2021 and re-elected in 2022, opted not to seek a full term this year. A competitive election has emerged to succeed him, featuring Judge Jennifer Schloegel of the Eighth Chancery District Court; Amy St. Pe’, a private attorney who serves as Moss Point City Attorney and as a municipal judge in the city of Gautier; and assistant district attorney Ian Baker.
By any measure, this is a deeply conservative district; Donald Trump won just shy of 70 percent of the vote here. All three candidates hold themselves out as conservative to at least some extent, so the stakes here are comparatively low, especially compared to the more contentious state Supreme Court election.
While Schloegel has mostly received support from attorneys, St. Pe’ has support from Republican politicians and business-affiliated PACs. Schloegel and St. Pe’ appear to be the likeliest to advance to a runoff election—or win outright on Nov. 5—based on their fundraising and campaign organization.
North Carolina
11R-4D (50-49% Trump)
The North Carolina Court of Appeals has 15 members who are elected to eight-year terms in statewide, partisan elections. Control of the court is not on the line this year. Republicans hold a sizable majority, but if Democrats win all three races, they could slim down the Republican edge to just 9R-6D. On the other hand, if Republicans run the table, they would expand their majority to 12R-3D.
This year, three seats are up:
Seat 12: When Republican Judge Richard Dietz was elected to the state Supreme Court in 2022, Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper appointed Democrat Allison Riggs as his replacement in 2023. Then, later that year, Cooper elevated Riggs to the Supreme Court and appointed Carolyn Thompson, a deputy commissioner on the state Industrial Commission, as her successor.
Thompson is now running for election to a full term. Her opponent is Tom Murry, the Republican nominee, who previously served as a member of the state House of Representatives and as chief of staff to the state judicial branch.
Seat 14: Judge Valerie Zachary, a Republican, is running for re-election against Democrat Ed Eldred, an appellate attorney.
Seat 15: Judge Hunter Murphy ran for re-election but was defeated in the Republican primary by Chris Freeman, who serves on the 17A Judicial District Court. In the general election, Freeman is opposed by Buncombe County Commissioner Martin Moore, the Democratic nominee.
Ohio
Ohio has 12 separate district courts of appeals, each of which corresponds to a different region of the state. Judges are elected in partisan elections to six-year terms. While the state’s intermediate appellate court elections have historically been more competitive affairs, their dynamic has rapidly changed in recent years.
In 2022, the luck of Democratic judges in ancestrally Democratic areas ran out, and several courts flipped to Republican control. On the flip side, Republican strength on appellate courts in Cincinnati, Cleveland, and Columbus was significantly weakened, too.
Those trends will continue this year, too, with many courts very likely to wind up being served exclusively by judges of one political party. This year, only the 1st District has any contested elections. In the other districts, many seats are flipping control in totally uncontested elections. A number of incumbent judges are hitting mandatory retirement ages or choosing not to seek re-election, and their parties have fielded no candidates to succeed them.
1st District Court of Appeals
5D-1R (Biden 57-42%) • Cincinnati
For the first time in recent memory—and possibly ever—Democrats look likely to win every seat on the Cincinnati-based 1st District Court of Appeals. Of the four judges up this year, Democrats Marilyn Zayas and Candace Crouse are seeking re-election. Zayas, a 2022 Democratic nominee for Ohio Supreme Court, faces Republican Stacy Lefton, a prosecutor in the Hamilton County Prosecuting Attorney’s office. Crouse faces Republican nominee Elizabeth Polston, who is also in the county prosecutor’s office.
Two of the judges up this year are retiring. Democrat Pierre Bergeron opted not to seek another term. The Democratic nominee in the race to replace him is Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas Court Judge Terry Nestor; he faces Republican Sean Donovan, who works in the appellate division of the county prosecutor’s office.
Republican Robert Winkler, the sole member of his party on the court following the 2022 elections, is opting to run for the Hamilton County Court of Common Pleas—which appears on the ballot as a nonpartisan election—instead of seeking re-election. Rich Moore, a partner at a national law firm, is the Democratic nominee; Hamilton County Common Pleas Court Judge Robert Goering is the Republican nominee.
Texas
Texas has a slightly confusing court structure. It functionally has two state supreme courts: the Court of Criminal Appeals, which has exclusive jurisdiction over criminal cases, and the Supreme Court, which hears all other matters. It then has 15 separate courts of appeals, which are generally laid out based on geography. Members of the courts of appeals are elected in partisan elections to six-year terms. There are two positions on each court: chief justice and justice.
However, in a few cases, the districts overlap, so some counties are served by more than one district. There are also two separate courts—the 1st Court of Appeals and the 14th Court of Appeals—that have jurisdiction over the same area. And the newly created 15th Court of Appeals—which is not on the ballot this year—will be elected statewide beginning in 2026.
There are many contested elections taking place this year, but many courts of appeals also lack any contested elections at all. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 13th, and 14th have contested races; in the other courts, all candidates are unopposed.
1st Court of Appeals
7D-2R (Biden 52-46%) • Metropolitan Houston
This district, which includes Houston and several neighboring counties, has zoomed to the left in recent years. In 2018, in both the 1st and 14th courts of appeals, Democrats went from zero seats to a majority. This year, five Democratic-held seats—every seat that Democrats won in 2018—are up. All five seats are contested in the general election, giving Republicans an opportunity to win a majority or shrink their deficit.
14th Court of Appeals
5D-4R (Biden 52-46%) • Metropolitan Houston
The 14th Court of Appeals has the same geographic jurisdiction as the 1st Court but a narrower Democratic majority. All five Democrats serving on the court are up this year, giving Republicans another opportunity to win a majority.
3rd Court of Appeals
6D-0R (Biden 54-44%) • Metropolitan Austin and parts of West Texas
This district includes metropolitan Austin, but also cuts deep into the heart of West Texas. Democrats first won a majority on the court in 2018 and extended that majority in recent elections. There are no Republicans serving, and of the four seats up this year, Republicans are only contesting one of them.
In that race, Justice Edward Smith was defeated in the Democratic primary by Maggie Ellis, the chair of the Travis County Juvenile Probation Department. In the general election, Ellis faces John Messinger, who works at the State Prosecuting Attorney’s office.
4th Court of Appeals
5D-2R (Biden 51-47%) • Metropolitan San Antonio and South Texas
This district, which stretches from San Antonio to south Texas, was narrowly won by Joe Biden in 2020 and has a solid—but not insurmountable—Democratic majority. Five of the seven seats on the court are up for election this year, and three races are contested in the general election. Democrats are guaranteed to hold at least three seats and Republicans just one seat, so if Republicans sweep all three competitive races, they can win a majority.
5th Court of Appeals
12D-1R (Biden 55-44%) • Metropolitan Dallas
As was the case in the 1st, 3rd, and 14th districts, Democrats won a majority in this district in 2018 and are defending it this year. Out of the 13 seats on this court, Democrats hold 12 (all but Place 13)—and if they sweep every race this year, they could hold all 13.
13th Court of Appeals
3R-3D (Biden 51-48%) • Corpus Christi, McAllen, South Texas
This narrowly Democratic district has shifted to the right in recent years, going from an all-Democratic bench to evenly split. This year, four seats on the court are up—all held by Democrats except Place 4—so control is on the line.
Washington
Washington has a single Court of Appeals consisting of 25 judges divided into three different divisions. Judges within the same division hear cases with each other. Each of the three divisions is further divided into a district, which elects a set number of judges.
Division 1 consists of metropolitan Seattle and northwestern Washington, running from King County to Whatcom County. Division 2 includes the remainder of western Washington: Tacoma, Vancouver, and the Olympic Peninsula. And Division 3 includes everything to the east of the Cascade Mountains in the central and eastern part of the state. There are eight seats up for election this year and all eight incumbents are running for re-election entirely unopposed.