Three Colorado Supreme Court justices easily won their retention elections on Tuesday, brushing off a recent controversial decision to disqualify the Republican presidential candidate and disapproval of how the court handled a contracting scandal.

Chief Justice Monica M. Márquez, Justice Brian D. Boatright and Justice Maria E. Berkenkotter were poised to secure new 10-year terms, according to the unofficial results from Election Day.

In contrast to other states that elect judges in contested races, Colorado’s governor appoints judges and justices after receiving a shortlist from a citizen-led commission. Generally, judges are prohibited from campaigning for their retentions. It is rare for voters to reject any judge — especially if they receive a positive performance review, as each of the justices did this year.

However, there was a potential for 2024 to be an outlier after certain key developments. In December, the Supreme Court voted, 4-3, to remove Donald Trump from the state’s primary ballot under Colorado’s election laws. Based on the evidence presented in the trial court, the majority believed he was constitutionally ineligible because he engaged in insurrection. Márquez sided with the majority while Boatright and Berkenkotter dissented.

Further, this was the first Supreme Court retention election following news reports that the judicial branch allegedly entered into a contract with an employee to prevent a “tell-all” lawsuit about judicial misconduct. The chief justice at the time, Nathan B. Coats, was subsequently censured for exhibiting poor judgment and relying on untrustworthy subordinates. Berkenkotter succeeded him after his retirement in 2020.

Although some opinion articles advocated against the justices’ retention based on the contract scandal, one entity took aim at Márquez for her vote in the Trump decision, which the U.S. Supreme Court later reversed on the grounds that states cannot disqualify presidential candidates.

The Article III Project, founded by Trump defender Mike Davis, launched an advertisement accusing Márquez of taking Trump off the ballot “illegally” to “disenfranchise over 550,000 Trump primary voters.”

“Márquez doesn’t respect Colorado voters. She doesn’t respect democracy. It’s time to fire her,” the voiceover continued.

Davis, a rumored candidate for attorney general in a second Trump administration whose goal for the Article III Project has been to make the judiciary “a hell of a lot more conservative,” published an opinion article on Oct. 24 saying Márquez and the other justices who voted to disqualify Trump “defiled” democracy.

That message prompted a handful of legal groups to issue statements condemning “politically motivated advocacy.”

“Political pressure and intimidation tactics threaten the independent judiciary that underpins our democratic system and erode the protections it provides to all Coloradans,” wrote the Colorado Bar Association.

The Colorado Defense Lawyers Association and the Colorado Judicial Institute, a nonprofit that advocates for the judiciary, “support the First Amendment right to free speech, but the recent attacks go beyond simply exercising that right,” the groups wrote. “If such efforts succeeded, they would send a chilling message to judges in Colorado and elsewhere: rule against powerful political interests at your peril.”

A campaign committee in Colorado for the Article III Project registered with the secretary of state’s office on Oct. 14 and reported spending $2,000 on the anti-Márquez ad, plus additional ad expenditures on social media.

And yet, there did not seem to be substantial appetite among Republican organizations locally in signal boosting the advocacy against Márquez’s — or any justice’s — retention. Some local parties, like the Weld County GOP, recommended against retaining Márquez, citing her vote in the Trump case. 

The Jefferson County GOP, in contrast, recommended retaining all judges, otherwise Gov. Jared Polis “gets to appoint even more radical judges & justices.”

Ultimately, while roughly two-thirds of voters chose to retain Márquez, Boatright and Berkenkotter, the margins of victory were lower than those their colleagues enjoyed in recent years. Márquez and Boatright also performed slightly worse than in their first retention election in 2014.

The quiet nature of Colorado’s Supreme Court retention races stands in contrast to other state supreme court elections this year. The candidates for a contested North Carolina seat raised approximately $6.5 million for their race and the ACLU of Montana and Michigan invested millions of dollars into educating voters about candidates’ positions on civil rights issues in their respective states.

“Colorado voters long ago rejected the influence of politics in our courts, and generally speaking the retention results seem to reflect that still holds true,” said Jeff Rupp, the Colorado Judicial Institute’s executive director.