Here are the races to watch in Texas on Election Day

Three seats on the all-GOP Texas Supreme Court will be decided this year — the first statewide judicial election since the overturning of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Democrats this year, are targeting the three incumbents — justices John Devine, Jane Bland and Jimmy Blacklock — hoping bipartisan backlash over abortion rulings will give them their first win on the bench since 1994.

Polling has found that Texas voters are broadly dissatisfied with the strictness of the state’s abortion laws. But experts say that Democrats face hurdles on Tuesday given the lack of attention paid by voters to the Texas Supreme Court, the state’s highest civil body. Since Jan. 1, Bland and Blacklock have also raised and spent more than three times as much as their opponents, judges Bonnie Lee Goldstein and DaSean Jones.

There are signs that Devine could be more vulnerable than his Republican colleagues in his race against Harris County District Court Judge Christine Weems. He was the only justice with a primary challenger this year, and narrowly survived a heated campaign that focused on, among other ethical concerns, his absence from half of oral arguments before the court last year. Devine has trailed Weems in both fundraising and spending this cycle.

Devine is a longtime fixture in conservative Christian legal causes who has called church-state separation a “myth” and, as a Supreme Court candidate in 2011, claimed to have been arrested 37 times at anti-abortion protests in the 1980s. Earlier this year, the Tribune reported that Devine did not recuse himself from a high-profile sex abuse lawsuit against Southern Baptist leader Paul Pressler despite working for Pressler’s law firm at the time of the alleged molestations. Last month, the Tribune also reported that Devine has for years overseen the trust of an elderly millionaire with dementia — despite prohibitions on Texas judges serving in such fiduciary roles for non-family members. Devine has denied any wrongdoing, saying the woman considered him like a son for decades.

Texas’ Court of Appeals has traditionally been overshadowed by the state Supreme Court, its civil counterpart in Texas’ bifurcated judicial system. But this year, a series of political fights over the death penalty and voter fraud investigations have thrust the all-Republican judicial body into an unexpected spotlight — and created a fork-in-the-road moment for voters, who will decide Tuesday between three judges backed by Attorney General Ken Paxton, or their Democratic challengers.

The surprise drama of this year’s race traces back to 2021, when the court ruled that Paxton’s office must get permission from county prosecutors to pursue cases of alleged voter fraud.Furious, Paxton vowed revenge and launched a full-on electoral blitz that decisively ousted three incumbent judges during the GOP primary in March.

On the ballot Tuesday are the three Paxton-endorsed candidates — David Schenck, Gina Parker and Lee Finley — and their respective Democratic challengers, Holly Taylor, Nancy Mulder and Chika Anyiam.

Separately, the Court of Criminal Appeals has faced recent scrutiny for its role in the high-profile political fight over Robert Roberson, a death row inmate whose scheduled execution was halted earlier this month by a bipartisan group of Texas House members. All three of the court’s outgoing judges voted to allow Roberson’s execution to move forward. But if even one of the court’s new judges seems likely to take a different stance, it could open the door to a rehearing. Those chances are likely to diminish if Republican candidates sweep next week.

— Robert Downen