aint enough bacon to fix this tho

Pa. election results: All 3 Democratic Supreme Court justices win retention races

Republicans and their allies had hoped to defeat the justices and put their seats on the 2027 ballot, opening a path to flip the court. The Democratic majority has handed down critical rulings over the past decade, upholding mail voting and throwing out a congressional map that it found unfairly benefited the GOP.

Justices Christine Donohue, Kevin Dougherty, and David Wecht were on the ballot Tuesday. They were first elected in 2015 in a sweep that flipped the court from Republican to Democratic control.

The Associated Press called all three races at 9:53 p.m. Unofficial results show their margins are all around 27 points.

The last state Supreme Court retention elections were held in 2017, with Todd and Thomas Saylor, a Republican who has since retired, on the ballot. Spending on those races — from the candidates as well as from special interests via independent expenditures — was relatively low, totaling about $850,000.

Spending this year has well exceeded that total.

Campaign finance records show nearly $3.3 million has been spent by Dougherty or on his behalf through in-kind donations of goods or services like mailers through Oct. 20. That total is more than $2 million for Wecht and $1.8 million for Donohue.

In addition, a wide range of special interest groups — including Planned Parenthood’s super PAC, Democratic and Republican committees that receive national money, and a trio of groups tied to the state’s richest man, Jeffrey Yass — have spent at least $9.8 million as of Tuesday evening.

Anti-retention groups urged voters to “term limit the court” and “defend our democracy,” and highlighted high-profile decisions, including a ruling to overturn the conviction of comedian Bill Cosby on a technicality. A Yass-connected group sent out a mailer that accused the court of gerrymandering the state’s congressional map “to help Democrats win,” while highlighting a GOP-drawn map thrown out for unfairly benefiting Republicans.

Groups supporting the justices said that the state Supreme Court would defend reproductive health care in the state, and argued in ads that “billionaires” are “trying to buy our independent and fair courts.”

All three justices were recommended by the Pennsylvania Bar Association, which called them “fair,” “open to consideration of differing perspectives,” and “logical.”

https://www.spotlightpa.org/news/2025/11/pa-election-results-supreme-court-retention-donohue-dougherty-wecht/