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Sheryl McCloud
2013 - Present
2031
12
Sheryl Gordon McCloud is a judge for Position 9 of the Washington Supreme Court. She assumed office on January 1, 2013. Her current term ends on January 13, 2031.
McCloud ran for re-election for the Position 9 judge of the Washington Supreme Court. She won in the general election on November 5, 2024.
McCloud first became a member of the Washington Supreme Court through a nonpartisan election. She was first elected to the court in 2012, to the seat vacated by retiring Justice Tom Chambers. To read more about judicial selection in Washington, click here.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[1] McCloud received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[2] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Before she was elected to the state supreme court, McCloud worked as a public defender and as an appellate lawyer. She also taught as an adjunct professor at Seattle University Law School. McCloud received her undergraduate degree from the State University of New York at Buffalo in 1976. She earned her J.D. from the University of Southern California School of Law in 1984.[3]
McCloud was awarded the William O. Douglas Award by the Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers in 2008.[4]
Elections
2024
See also: Washington Supreme Court elections, 2024
General election
General election for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9
Incumbent Sheryl Gordon McCloud won election in the general election for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9 on November 5, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Sheryl Gordon McCloud (Nonpartisan) | 97.5 | 2,534,783 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 2.5 | 65,479 | ||
| Total votes: 2,600,262 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
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Nonpartisan primary election
The primary election was canceled. Incumbent Sheryl Gordon McCloud advanced from the primary for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9.
Campaign finance
Endorsements
McCloud received the following endorsements.
2018
See also: Washington Supreme Court elections, 2018
General election
General election for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9
Incumbent Sheryl Gordon McCloud won election in the general election for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9 on November 6, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Sheryl Gordon McCloud (Nonpartisan) | 100.0 | 2,005,244 |
| Total votes: 2,005,244 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Withdrawn or disqualified candidates
- Stan Lippmann (Nonpartisan)
Nonpartisan primary election
The primary election was canceled. Incumbent Sheryl Gordon McCloud advanced from the primary for Washington State Supreme Court Position 9.
2012
- See also: Washington judicial elections, 2012
McCloud was elected to position 9 on the Washington Supreme Court. This seat was held by retiring Justice Tom Chambers. She advanced from the primary election on August 7, after winning 31.61% of the vote. She then earned 55.24% of the vote, defeating Richard Sanders in the general election on November 6, 2012.[5][6][7]
Ratings
- Rated as Qualified by the Justice for Washington Foundation[8]
- Rated as Exceptionally Well Qualified by the King County Bar Association[9]
Endorsements
- The Seattle Times. To read the endorsement, see: The Seattle Times, Editorial: "Sheryl McCloud for Supreme Court," August 17, 2012.
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Sheryl Gordon McCloud did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Last updated: June 15, 2020
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country as of June 15, 2020.
The study presented Confidence Scores that represented our confidence in each justice's degree of partisan affiliation. This was not a measure of where a justice fell on an ideological spectrum, but rather a measure of how much confidence we had that a justice was or had been affiliated with a political party. The scores were based on seven factors, including but not limited to party registration.[10]
The five resulting categories of Confidence Scores were:
- Strong Democrat
- Mild Democrat
- Indeterminate[11]
- Mild Republican
- Strong Republican
This justice's Confidence Score, as well as the factors contributing to that score, is presented below. The information below was current as of June 2020.
Sheryl Gordon
McCloud
Washington
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Donated over $2,000 to Democratic candidates
- Received donations from Democrat-affiliated individuals or organizations
- State was a Democratic trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
McCloud donated $3,975 to Democratic candidates. She received $3,800 in donations from the Washington State Council of Fire Fighters, $3,800 in donations from the Washington Education Association, and $3,800 from the International Union of Painters and Allied Trades, all of which regularly support Democratic candidates. She won election in 2018 when the state was a Democratic trifecta.
State supreme court judicial selection in Washington
- See also: Judicial selection in Washington
The nine justices of the supreme court are selected through contested nonpartisan elections and must run for re-election when their terms expire. Supreme court judges serve for six years.[12]
Qualifications
To serve on the supreme court, a judge must be:
- admitted to practice law in Washington; and
- under the age of 75.[13]
Chief justice
The chief justice of the supreme court is selected through a peer vote and has a set term of four years.[14]
Vacancies
In the event of a midterm vacancy, the governor appoints a replacement. The appointee serves until the next general election, at which point he or she may run to serve for the remainder of the predecessor's term.[15] If the resignation and subsequent appointment takes place after the filing period opens for that year's elections, the appointee must stand in the next year's election to remain on the bench.[16]
The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
External links
|
Candidate Washington State Supreme Court Position 9 |
Officeholder Washington State Supreme Court Position 9 |
Footnotes
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Vote Smart, "Sheryl McCloud," accessed July 23, 2021
- ↑ Washington Association of Criminal Defense Lawyers, "William O. Douglas Award Recipients," accessed July 23, 2021
- ↑ Washington Secretary of State, "2012 Primary Results by County," August 28, 2012
- ↑ Washington Secretary of State, 2012 Candidates who have filed
- ↑ Washington Secretary of State, 2012 General Election Results - Judicial
- ↑ Justice for Washington Foundation, Rating of Judicial Candidates
- ↑ King County Bar Association, 2012 Judicial Election Ratings
- ↑ The seven factors were party registration, donations made to partisan candidates, donations made to political parties, donations received from political parties or bodies with clear political affiliation, participation in political campaigns, the partisanship of the body responsible for appointing the justice, and state trifecta status when the justice joined the court.
- ↑ An Indeterminate score indicates that there is either not enough information about the justice’s partisan affiliations or that our research found conflicting partisan affiliations.
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, Methods of Judicial Selection: Washington," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, Methods of Judicial Selection: Washington," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, Methods of Judicial Selection: Washington," accessed April 16, 2025
- ↑ Washington State Legislature, "Washington State Constitution," accessed April 16, 2025 (Scroll to Article IV, Section 3)
- ↑ National Center for State Courts, Methods of Judicial Selection: Washington," accessed April 16, 2025
| Political offices | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by - |
Washington State Supreme Court Position 9 2013-Present |
Succeeded by - |
Federal courts:
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: Eastern District of Washington, Western District of Washington • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: Eastern District of Washington, Western District of Washington
State courts:
Washington Supreme Court • Washington Court of Appeals • Washington Superior Court • Washington District Courts • Washington Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in Washington • Washington judicial elections • Judicial selection in Washington
| ||||||||||
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State of Washington Olympia (capital) |
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