Campaign heats up around retention of 3 Pa. Supreme Court justices

The state Supreme Court, which has had the final Pennsylvania say in high-profile election fights, is itself in the middle of an unusual election fight.

Three justices — Christine Donohue, Kevin M. Dougherty and David N. Wecht, all Democrats — face “retention” decisions in the Nov. 4 municipal election, meaning voters statewide will simply be asked whether each should be retained for another 10-year term.

Democrats desperately want to keep their 5-2 majority on the highest court in arguably the nation’s most important swing state. Republicans just as badly want to flip the court to their side. A listing of the areas in which it has made important decisions recently reads like a listing of society’s biggest political battlegrounds: redistricting maps, the mail-in voting law, the COVID-19 pandemic.

And so the campaign is intensifying and the interest is national, given the potential ramifications the vote could have on the 2028 presidential election.


https://www.post-gazette.com/news/politics-state/2025/09/21/pennsylvania-election-judge-retention-donohue-wecht-dougherty/stories/202509160080