Michigan Supreme Court: 2024 Election Results

DETROIT (AP) - Two seats are up for election on Michigan’s Supreme Court, where Democratic-backed justices hold a 4-3 majority. Court races are technically nonpartisan, but candidates are nominated at party conventions. Republicans would need to win both seats to flip the court in their favor.

Justice Kyra Harris Bolden is defending the seat she was appointed to two years ago by Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer. Bolden was the first Black woman to sit on Michigan’s bench. She faces Republican-backed circuit court Judge Patrick O’Grady for the remaining four years of the eight-year term.

Republican state Rep. Andrew Fink is competing against University of Michigan law professor Kimberly Anne Thomas, who was nominated by Democrats, for the other open seat that is being vacated by a Republican-backed justice.

Michigan voters already have locked abortion rights in the state constitution, though groups backing Bolden and Thomas are framing the races as crucial to defending those rights, with one group’s ad warning that "the Michigan state Supreme Court can still take abortion rights away."