UPDATE: This story was updated at 2 p.m. Wednesday, March 6, 2024.
The race for chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court will be decided in a November runoff between two sitting justices — Rhonda Wood and Karen Baker.
Wood, 51, of Conway and Baker, 60, of Clinton were the top two vote-getters in a race that was too close to call early into Wednesday morning.
None of the four candidates in the race, which also included Associate Justice Barbara Webb of Benton and Little Rock attorney and former state legislator Jay Martin, garnered more than 50% of the vote — the required amount to avoid a runoff.
That means Wood and Baker will square off in a two-person race on the the Nov. 5 General Election ballot.
Whichever candidate wins will be the first elected female chief justice of the Arkansas Supreme Court. Former Chief Justice Betty Dickey was the first woman to lead Arkansas’ highest court when she was appointed to fill the chief justice position temporarily by former Gov. Mike Huckabee in 2003.
As of 7 a.m. Wednesday, unofficial returns were:
Karen Baker — 86,239 (27.2%)
Rhonda Wood — 83,438 (26.3%)
Barbara Webb — 82,065 (25.9%)
Jay Martin — 65,364 (20.6%)
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The vacancy at the top of the state’s highest court is being left by Chief Justice John Dan Kemp, who will retire at the end of his term in January.
The chief serves as the state’s top judicial officer and is the administrative head of the court, typically acting as the public face of the body.
The winner will serve an eight-year term and will be paid $202,987 annual salary.
Whichever justice wins in November will leave a vacancy in their current seat that will be filled by the governor. That appointment will serve until the next general election.
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Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders will also appoint a justice to fill the Position 3 seat vacated by Associate Justice Courtney Hudson, who won a different position on the state’s highest court Tuesday night.
The Associated Press called the Position 2 race for Hudson, 51, of Fayetteville a little more than an hour after the polls closed at 7:30 p.m. She defeated Circuit Judge Carlton Jones of Texarkana.
As of midnight Tuesday, unofficial returns were:
Courtney Hudson — 220,696 (60.6%)
Carlton Jones — 143,554 (39.4%)
Hudson, who was first elected to the court in 2010, will serve the remaining six years left in the late Justice Robin Wynne’s term.
She said she decided to run for Wynne’s seat, in part, because its term length falls in a way that will allow her to serve more years on the court before reaching the mandatory judicial retirement age of 70.
She emphasized her experience during the campaign, saying she’d continue to take a “common sense, balanced approach to the law.”
Jones, a former prosecutor, would have been the first Black justice elected to the Arkansas Supreme Court.
