Illustration of Washington Supreme Court candidates in 2026 general election. Photos showcase Colleen Melody, Scott Edwards, David Stevens, Jaime Hawk, Sean O'Donnell, Ian Birk, Theo Angelis, Dave Larson, Debra Stephens, and Todd Bloom.
Teo Popescu / KUOW
Court watchers around the country have an eye on Washington state this fall. That’s because a majority of the court’s seats are on the ballot.
While the races are nonpartisan, liberals say the court has a trailblazing reputation to safeguard, while conservatives say some of the court’s rule-making and decisions are out of step with state residents. Together, the five races are drawing record spending, including from outside groups.
The nonpartisan but left-leaning Brennan Center for Justice highlighted the Washington Supreme Court races as significant nationally. Douglas Keith, deputy director of Brennan’s judiciary program, said Washington state has become an example to other states of how to protect citizens’ rights under state constitutions rather than the federal one.
“The Washington Supreme Court has been a leader in recognizing protections against discrimination under the state Constitution in various contexts — from juries to criminal justice to police stops — in ways that other states have not, or at least have not yet,” Keith said.
He pointed to the court’s rulings barring mandatory life sentences for anyone under 21 and striking down the death penalty.
Keith said as the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court has pulled back protections around abortion and voting, people will turn more to state high courts like Washington’s to seek them.
Meanwhile, Republican Rob McKenna, the former state attorney general who has led legal challenges to Washington’s capital gains and income taxes, said the state Supreme Court has become more uniformly liberal in the last 20 years.
“It would be good to see some ideological diversity,” he said. “The court has taken a notable turn to the left.”
McKenna attributed that shift to fewer contested races and fewer judges finishing their terms, which enabled the state’s Democratic governors to appoint their replacements. But McKenna said this year’s races are bucking some of these trends; there’s more robust competition and no candidate is running unopposed. He and other Republicans formed the organization Full Court Press to support conservative candidates.
“This year is notable because, of course, you have an unusual number of supreme court positions up, with five slots out of nine, because the two appointees have to stand for election this fall.”
The court’s newest appointee is former K&L Gates attorney Theo Angelis. At a recent election forum hosted by the King County Bar Association, Angelis said the biggest challenge facing the judicial system is access to justice. He supports broadening the definitions of who can do legal work and the use of technology to streamline “formulaic” efforts like creating wills.
Angelis also defended the court’s caseload reductions for public defenders, which some counties have criticized as unattainable.
“These standards themselves are not unduly burdensome,” Angelis said. “The question is how do we find the resources to implement them. In many ways, our [state] Constitution is one big unfunded mandate, and as the judicial branch, we have to have courage to be able to say, ‘This is what due process looks like.’”
His opponent is retired Federal Way Municipal Court Judge Dave Larson, who said the biggest challenge to the current system is the number of governor-appointed justices and lack of contested races. Larson said these trends are causing voters to tune out and skip these races on their ballot. He lost his 2024 Supreme Court race against Justice Sal Mungia by less than 1%, while 675,000 people cast a ballot for governor but skipped the Supreme Court race.
“The biggest challenge is trust and confidence, even the way we elect and appoint judges,” Larson said. “Without trust and confidence, we can’t accomplish much whether it’s at the Legislature, with the public, or anything else.”
Larson said he’d like to see a bipartisan commission to vet judicial candidates.
Justice Colleen Melody also was appointed by Gov. Bob Ferguson and is now running to retain her seat. She said her previous experience running the civil rights division under Ferguson at the Washington Attorney General’s Office helps her administer the judicial branch and evaluate the impact of the court’s decisions.
“I think government needs to stay in its lane. That’s the role of the judiciary is to check it,” Melody said, “but it’s also not the role of the judiciary to hobble it.”
Her opponent is tax attorney Scott Edwards, who has sued unsuccessfully to block progressive taxes in the past.
“We don’t have the technical expertise I would bring to the bench,” he said, “and I think I would also add to that a diversity of perspective as a result.”
The state’s new high-earners income tax is expected to make its way before the state Supreme Court at some point. That’s drawn more attention to these races as well.
Two of the Supreme Court seats on the ballot are open with no incumbent. Position 3 pits two superior court-level judges against each other: Jaime Hawk from King County and Mason County’s David Stevens.
Hawk is a former ACLU attorney who said she appreciated the state Supreme Court’s letter in 2020, which condemned the court’s own role in “devaluing” Black lives and pledged to seek changes.
She said, “Some of the cases that I’ve appreciated the court providing leadership to proactively overturn have been really in the context of where there’s been racist decisions made.”
Hawk offered the example of the court’s 2021 decision overturning a ruling from 60 years earlier that barred a Black child from being buried in a whites-only children’s section of Evergreen Washelli Cemetery.
Her opponent Stevens, a former prosecutor and public defender, said the court hasn’t shown enough respect for precedent. He especially condemned the 2021 Blake decision that struck down the state’s felony drug possession law.
“I believe there was an ideological decision,” he said, in which the justices “overturned that decision, allowing drugs, and I think the effects were terrible.”
The Legislature ultimately enacted a new law making drug possession a gross misdemeanor.
The other open seat on the ballot also involves two judges: Washington State Court of Appeals Judge Ian Birk and King County Superior Court Judge Sean O’Donnell are running for Position 4.
Both have extensive endorsements from Democrats, but O’Donnell also has Republican backing. Birk’s campaign materials accused O’Donnell of having a “partisan agenda.” O’Donnell’s campaign said he has no political affiliation and issued a letter signed by dozens of judges. It called Birk’s accusations “false” and said “bipartisan support is something to be celebrated rather than demonized.”
In a recent debate, O’Donnell called Birk “a very smart person” but said Birk’s “judgement” on this campaign tactic “has been exceptionally poor.”
Birk stood by his campaign materials, saying: “I think the voters are entitled to know who is backing a candidate because that is material information for them.”
Birk and O’Donnell also disagreed about the impact of the state Supreme Court’s rule-making – O’Donnell condemned the court’s reduced caseloads for public defenders saying cases are being dismissed and “the impact is going to be on public safety.” Birk defended the decision to reduce caseloads and said counties have ten years to phase them in. But Birk also said the court should slow down its rule-making in general because it’s hard for the legal community to keep up.
Chief Justice Debra Stephens is also running for reelection. Gov. Christine Gregoire appointed Stephens in 2007 as the first female justice from Eastern Washington.
In the state’s video voter guide, Stephens said as a former law professor at Gonzaga University, “I understand and respect legal precedents and constitutional principles.”
She said, “In an era of growing attempts to politicize the judicial system, I work every day to safeguard the fairness and integrity of our courts.”
Stephens’ opponent is U.S. Navy veteran, tax attorney, and CPA Todd Bloom of Tacoma.
Bloom told the state voter guide he supports the “distinct” role of the judiciary.
“Judges are not legislators,” he said. “A judge’s role is not to decide which policy outcome they personally prefer.”
Altogether, the five state Supreme Court races have reported approximately $2.8 million in donations so far, which campaigns say is a record for judicial races in Washington.
The Birk/O’Donnell race and the Angelis/Larson race have attracted the lion’s share of the contributions at nearly $1 million each. Independent expenditures are also being made by groups like business-backed Concerned Taxpayers of Washington and labor-backed Beware the Attacks on Our Courts.
Amy Radil is a reporter with KUOW. This story comes to you from the Northwest News Network, a collaboration between public media organizations in Oregon and Washington.
It is part of OPB’s broader effort to ensure that everyone in our region has access to quality journalism that informs, entertains and enriches their lives. To learn more, visit our journalism partnerships page.
