Follow live: Updates from AP’s coverage of the presidential election.
A costly campaign by abortion-rights advocates for state supreme court seats yielded mixed results in Tuesday’s election, with Republicans expanding their majority on Ohio’s court while candidates backed by progressive groups won in Montana and Michigan.
One of the most expensive and closely watched supreme court races in North Carolina, where a Democratic justice campaigned heavily on abortion rights and Republicans hope to expand their majority, remained too early to call Thursday.
Groups on both the right and left spent millions in the leadup to the election hoping to reshape courts that’ll be battlegrounds for voting rights, redistricting, abortion and other issues.
Abortion-rights supporters touted victories in states that Donald Trump won, saying it’s a sign that reproductive rights will be key in judicial campaigns after the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2022 decision overturning Roe v. Wade. In states like Montana and Arizona, state courts may soon be tasked with interpreting how abortion-rights amendments voters passed this week would impact existing laws.