Oklahomans narrowly chose to retain two of the three state Supreme Court justices who were on the ballot inTuesday’s election after anonymous groups spent millions to sway voters.

Voters chose to retain justices James E. Edmondson and Noma Gurich, but not Yvonne Kauger. It was the first time in state history voters chose not to retain a justice.

All three justices on the ballot were previously appointed by Democratic governors. Gov. Brad Henry appointed justices Edmondson in 2003 and Gurich in 2011. Gov. George Nigh appointed Kauger in 1984.

It is rare in Oklahoma for state Supreme Court justices not to win retention by wide vote margins, and the retention questions usually attract little fanfare.

Over the past 10 years, voters chose to retain the state’s Supreme Court justices every time they appeared on the ballot with 62.8% on average, according to data from the Oklahoma Election Board. The lowest vote for retention of a justice in the past 10 years was 58.7%, data shows.

Edmondson had the strongest showing of the three justices, according to unofficial results from the Oklahoma State Election Board Tuesday night, with 51% voting to retain, while Gurich narrowly won retention with 50.3% of the vote. Only 7,555 votes gave Gurich the edge, out of more than 1.4 million votes cast. Kauger narrowly lost retention by 7,047 votes. Only 49.8% of voters supported keeping her on the court.

Kauger’s loss opens a spot on the state’s high court, which allows Gov. Kevin Stitt to now appoint her replacement from a pool of candidates selected by the state’s Judicial Nominating Commission.

Voters still chose to retain all judges up for retention on the Court of Criminal Appeals and the Court of Civil Appeals by relatively large margins this year, the results show.

“This is a historic day,” Stitt said in a statement to The Frontier. “Voters made it clear they are tired of activist judges on our Supreme Court who don’t share our Oklahoma values. It’s time for fresh eyes on the court.”

Edmondson and Gurich, meanwhile, will serve for another 6-year term before appearing on the ballot again.

Judges and justices are mostly prohibited from campaigning for retention.

Outside groups had spent more than $3.6 million campaigning for and against all three justices as of late Tuesday.

The first ads advocating for voters to not retain the justices came from a group linked to the Oklahoma-based conservative think tank Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs named People for Opportunity. Though the nonprofit group is not required to disclose who is funding its campaign to voters, tax records reviewed by The Frontier found that the group received $450,000 last year from a national organization that has helped shift the federal judiciary to the ideological right.

As of late Tuesday, People for Opportunity reported it had spent more than $1.6 million advocating for the justices’ defeat, the most of any of the groups participating in the election.

Dave Bond, a spokesman for both Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs and People for Opportunity, did not return a phone message seeking comment late Tuesday night.

Another group, 46 Action, linked to Gov. Kevin Stitt, spent $447,507 advocating for the justices’ defeat. Though that group is required to reveal its donors to voters, donations to it were first run through a sister nonprofit organization, masking the true source of the funds.

Two other dark money groups spent more than a combined $1.5 million advocating for the justices’ retention. Neither of those groups, which bill themselves as nonprofit limited liability companies, are required to reveal who funded their attempts to sway voters.

One of those groups, Protect Our Freedoms LLC, is an Ohio-registered corporation linked to a larger dark money network based in Ohio that regularly spends money in Oklahoma elections. Though it was incorporated in 2021, the group does not yet appear to have tax exempt status from the IRS. 

The second group, Hands Off Our Courts LLC, was formed less than a month before the election in Delaware. That group reported spending $270,000 on mostly digital ads advocating the justices be retained.