Three Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices – all originally elected to the court as Democrats – are projected to remain on bench of the state's top court following Tuesday's retention elections. The "yes" vote to keep all three judges on the seven-member court will maintain the 5-2 Democratic majority.
Justices Kevin Dougherty, Christine Donohue and David Wecht all held wide margins in the "yes" column by the time the Associated Press called the elections just before 10 p.m. All results in the chart below are unofficial until confirmed by election officials.
Dougherty and Wecht, both 63, will each get new 10-year terms on the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Donahue, who is 73, will serve another two years before reaching the state's mandatory judicial retirement age of 75. All three Democrats soundly outperformed their GOP opponents in 2015, capturing a majority on the court after Republicans had held the advantage for more than a decade.
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Pennsylvania Supreme Court retention election results
On Tuesday's ballot, Pennsylvania voters were given the choice to vote "yes" or "no" for each of the three justices, who do not face other candidates when up for retention. When a justice is not retained, the court has a vacancy that can be filled with an appointment by the governor – which requires Senate approval – before an open race in the next election cycle.
Dougherty spent 14 years on the Pennsylvania Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, specializing in family law cases, before his election to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. Donohue was a trial lawyer in Allegheny County for decades and served as state Superior Court judge before reaching the Supreme Court. Wecht similarly served as a Superior Court judge, also with a background in family law, before he was elected to the Supreme Court.
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Pennsylvania's top appellate court rules on a wide range of significant issues that include political redistricting, reproductive rights, education law and civil rights.
This year's election marked a rare instance when three seats were up for retention at the same time, although it is historically uncommon for Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices not to be retained. The last time a justice in Pennsylvania lost a retention bid was in 2005, when Philadelphia-based Justice Russell Nigro, a Democrat, was voted off the court by a 51%-49% margin. Justice Sandra Schultz Newman, a Republican from Philadelphia, narrowly retained her seat that year with 54% of the vote.
If all three justices had been voted down, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court likely would have been left shorthanded until 2027. Pennsylvania's Republican-controlled Senate would have held the power to thwart Interim appointments from Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro in hopes of holding out for the GOP to earn seats on the court in open contests. The loss of just one justice could have resulted in a deadlocked court for the foreseeable future.
Spending on this year's retention elections was projected to surpass $15 million, setting a record for nonpartisan judicial races that are usually quieter when fewer justices are on the ballot. The national Democratic and Republican parties both poured millions of dollars into this year's retention elections in a battle over the makeup of the court in one of the nation's perennial battleground states.