2025 state supreme court vacancy count

Ballotpedia tracks court vacancies in 52 state supreme courts across all 50 states. Since 2024, Ballotpedia has published an annual state supreme court vacancy count outlining vacancies that occurred within the past year.

Number of vacancies

In 2025, a record 26 vacancies occurred in 20 state supreme courts nationwide. This was the highest number of vacancies in a single year since Ballotpedia began tracking this data in 2018.

Ballotpedia counts a seat as vacant if the outgoing officeholder leaves office before their official term-end date or if the incoming officeholder takes office after their official term-start date. If an officeholder takes or leaves office on their official term-start or term-end date, Ballotpedia does not count the seat as vacant.

Vacancies by reason vacated

During 2025, 26 state supreme court justices vacated their seats before their scheduled term-end dates. Of the 26 vacancies, 18 resulted from a justice retiring from their seat. Four justices were elevated to federal judicial positions following nominations by President Donald Trump (R). Two associate justices became chief justices, leaving their associate justice seats vacant. One justice died while serving, and one justice was elected to a different seat on the same court.

Federal judicial elevations of state supreme court justices resumed in 2025 under President Trump’s second administration. On Sept. 2, 2025, President Trump nominated three sitting state supreme court justices to federal district court positions in Alabama and Mississippi. These nominations marked the first federal judicial elevations of state supreme court justices since former President Joe Biden (D) nominated then-Justice Maria Araujo Kahn of Connecticut to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit on Aug. 1, 2022. The 37-month gap between Kahn's nomination and the 2025 Trump nominations is the longest interval between such elevations since 2018. The previous longest gap—between October 2019 and July 2022—lasted just under 33 months.

Vacancies by state

The 26 vacancies in 2025 occurred across 20 states, with six states experiencing two vacancies each. In Arkansas and Texas, an associate justice ascended to the chief justice position, leaving their associate justice seats vacant.

This year saw a large number of justices retire from states that border the Gulf: Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas. Collectively, these states saw eight justices retire in 2025, accounting for approximately one-third of all vacancies that year. Four of these vacancies remained unfilled as of Jan. 13, 2026, making Gulf Coast states disproportionately represented among the six outstanding 2025 vacancies.

In 2025, five chief justices resigned from their seats in Alaska, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, and Wyoming. In three of these states, the vacancy allowed the governor to appoint a replacement chief justice. In Alaska and Georgia, however, the state supreme court selects the chief justice by chamber vote. In these two cases, the chamber appointed an associate justice to succeed the outgoing chief justice. By comparison, four chief justices vacated their seats in 2024.

Successors named by gender

As of Jan. 13, 2026, six outstanding 2025 vacancies remained unfilled. Of the remaining 20 vacancies filled in 2025, four (20%) women and 16 (80%) men were nominated to their state's court of last resort. This was the fewest number of women nominated to state supreme courts since Ballotpedia began tracking this data in 2018.

2026 vacancies

Looking ahead to 2026, six vacancies are scheduled to occur. Of these vacancies, two justices had already stepped down as of Jan. 13, 2026, and only the vacancy in Virginia had been filled. So far, all six scheduled 2026 vacancies resulted from retirements and occurred across six states.

Additional reading:

2025 sees record number of state justice vacancies