Six candidates are running for three seats on the Ohio Supreme Court in the partisan general election on Nov. 5, 2024.

The Ohio Capital Journal wrote that the outcome of the race will “have major impacts on a wide variety of issues that affect the lives of Ohioans,” including the state’s universal school voucher program, energy decisions like ratemaking and where oil and gas drilling can take place, challenges to the state’s 2023 abortion amendment, and redistricting.

Heading into the election, the court has a 4-3 Republican majority. For Democrats to win a 4-3 majority on the court, all three Democrats would need to win their races. For Republicans to maintain their majority, one Republican would need to win a race. As of 2024, Republicans have held a majority on the court since 1986.

Three of the seven justices on the court are running for re-election in two seats, leaving the third seat open. In one contest, two incumbent justices are running against each other for a seat that carries with it a full, six-year term on the court. Justice Joseph Deters (R), who Gov. Mike DeWine (R) appointed to the court in January 2023, decided to run for a full term against incumbent Justice Melody Stewart (D). Deters replaced Justice Sharon L. Kennedy (R), who won election to the chief justice seat in the 2022 general election.

In the race for Deters’ open seat, Lisa Forbes (D) is running against Dan Hawkins (R). In the race for Justice Michael Donnelly’s (D) seat, the incumbent is running against Megan Shanahan (R).

In 2022, all three Republican candidates won their elections by at least 10 percentage points.

This is just the second election cycle in which judicial candidates appear on the ballot under partisan labels. In 2021, the state passed a law that judges must be listed alongside a political party affiliation on the general election ballot. Before that, judges were selected through partisan primaries and nonpartisan general elections.

Thirty-three states are holding state supreme court elections in 2024. In total, 82 of the 344 seats on state supreme courts are up for election. Of these seats: 61 are held by nonpartisan justices, 15 are held by Republican justices, and six are held by Democratic justices. Click here to learn more.