2016 local judicial election review: Little turnover as incumbents dominate

November 14, 2016
By the Municipal Government Team

See also: Local trial court judicial elections, 2016 and Election results, 2016

In 2016, 39 of the 50 states held elections for local judicial offices. Those elections were broken into two categories: contested elections (partisan and nonpartisan) and retention elections. Of the 3,745 judgeships up for election, 3,126 (83.5 percent) were decided in contested elections, while 619 (16.5 percent) were decided in retention elections.

Incumbents seeking re-election lost in 96 of 3,095 cases, for a 96.9 percent re-election rate. The re-election rate for judges in retention elections was 99.7 percent. To put that into perspective, the following are incumbent re-election rates in November 2016 for other major political areas covered by Ballotpedia.

• State appellate courts - 150 of 153 (98.0 percent)
• U.S. Congress - 407 of 422 (96.4 percent)
• State executives - 50 of 53 (94.3 percent)
• State legislatures - 4,551 of 4,895 (93.0 percent)
• Municipal government - 171 of 195 (87.7 percent)
• School boards - 776 of 923 (84.1 percent)

Click on the tabs below to view statistics and more information about contested and retention election results from 2016.

Contested

Of the 39 states with judicial elections in 2016, 33 of them held contested elections. Across those states, 3,126 judgeships were up for election. Incumbents ran for re-election to 2,476 (79.2 percent) of those seats and were defeated in their re-election bids 94 (3.8 percent) times. Additionally, although more than one candidate could have filed to run in all of these races, 2,269 (72.6 percent) of judicial elections were unopposed.

Incumbents Success Rate

Unopposed Races

Notable results

• In Alabama, four sitting Republican judges on the 10th Judicial Circuit were defeated by Democratic challengers. All nine seats up for election in that circuit were won by Democratic candidates. The 10th Judicial Circuit serves Jefferson County, which is home to Birmingham. All four seats on Jefferson County's District Court were also won by Democratic candidates. One possible explanation for this is that voters in Alabama can choose to cast straight party ballots, where they select either all Democrats or all Republicans. AL.com reported that of the nearly 113,000 straight party ballots cast in Jefferson County, 59 percent were cast for Democrats and 41 percent were cast for Republicans.

• Texas was the state where the most incumbents lost re-election campaigns. Of the 24 incumbents who were defeated in 2016, 20 (83.3 percent) were Republican. More than half of those Republican losses occurred in Harris County, where 13 Republican judges joined three countywide officials in losing to Democratic challengers. The Houston Chronicle called the election a "watershed moment" for Democrats in Harris County.

Statistics by state

Local Judicial Contested Elections in 2016
State	Judgeships Up	Incumbents Running	Incumbents Defeated	Unopposed Races
Alabama	104	71	5	88
Arizona	27	27	1	26
Arkansas	18	10	0	14
California	351	337	1	329
Connecticut	2	0	0	0
Florida	252	193	4	192
Georgia	488	421	4	388
Illinois	65	25	1	32
Indiana	52	31	3	27
Kansas	85	69	1	63
Kentucky	14	7	1	3
Louisiana	15	0	0	6
Maine	8	6	1	5
Maryland	26	25	0	16
Michigan	157	130	2	112
Minnesota	98	98	0	90
Mississippi	6	6	1	3
Missouri	17	11	3	12
Montana	4	2	1	1
Nevada	3	3	0	1
New Mexico	22	19	3	12
New York	83	25	1	34
North Carolina	171	156	6	132
North Dakota	23	20	0	19
Ohio	115	90	6	57
Oregon	58	52	0	50
South Carolina	10	6	0	5
Tennessee	20	15	1	11
Texas	297	182	24	168
Washington	198	170	0	169
West Virginia	277	221	21	154
Wisconsin	40	30	3	30
Wyoming	20	18	0	20
TOTAL	3,126	2,476	94	2,269

Retention

Of the 39 states with local judicial elections in 2016, 12 held retention elections. Across these 12 states, 619 judgeships were up for retention. Two judges (0.32 percent) were not retained.

Retention Elections

Judges not retained

• Dale Hood, of the 21st Circuit Court in Missouri, received only 40.4 percent of votes in favor of his retention. Hood was the only circuit court judge running for retention in the state to not receive a majority positive endorsement from the Missouri Bar's judicial performance review board. Only one person of the 21-member panel chose to give Hood a positive endorsement. Hood was also not recommended for retention by the committee in 2008 and 2012 but was retained on both occasions. Hood became the third nonpartisan judge not to be retained since the state's current system was adopted in 1940. A replacement judge will be appointed by the governor with the help of a judicial selection commission.

• Jill-Ellyn Straus, of the 17th District Court in Colorado, received only 47.3 percent of votes in favor for her retention. Straus was one of two judges to not receive a retention recommendation from the Colorado Office of Judicial Performance Evaluation. The other was Michael Schiferl of the 16th District Court, who won retention with 53.8 percent of the vote. The survey on Straus' performance found that 81 percent of attorneys thought the judge was biased toward prosecutors and 59 percent said that she did not treat participants with respect. A replacement judge will be appointed by the governor from a list of names compiled by a nominating commission.

Statistics by state

Local Judicial Retention Elections in 2016
State	Retention Races	Not Retained
Alaska	30	0
Arizona	61	0
Colorado	97	1
Idaho	44	0
Illinois	116	0
Iowa	59	0
Kansas	62	0
Missouri	45	1
Montana	9	0
Nebraska	45	0
Utah	31	0
Wyoming	20	0
TOTAL	619	2

See also

Local Politics	2016 Election Analysis
Municipal government Local courts School boards Local ballot measures Local recalls	Municipal elections, 2016 Local court elections, 2016 School board elections, 2016 Local ballot measure elections, 2016 Political recall efforts, 2016	Local: Partisanship in local elections Local: Money in local elections Local: Preemption conflicts between state and local governments Municipal: Partisanship in United States mayoral elections Municipal: Race, law enforcement, and the ballot box School boards: Education policy at the state and local levels Local ballots: Using local measures to advance national agendas