State Supreme Court Races Take Center Stage as Trump Criticizes Supreme Court

Voters in two dozen states, covering half of the country, will decide state Supreme Court races on Tuesday in the November election. The partisan, nonpartisan and retention contests will determine which candidates win seats or stay on the bench of courts that often have the final word. In Ohio, the court race has involved heavy corporate and dark money campaigning, and critics say billionaires have already captured the state's Supreme Court and now want it to be fully Republican. Separately, Trump criticized the Supreme Court after a court rejected one of his favored issues. The material available does not say which ruling was involved or what he said.

Left-leaning coverage, from Raw Story, leads with Trump's swipe at the Supreme Court. Its headline presents him as stung by a court's rejection of his pet issue. The text available contains only an author biography, with no quotes, numbers, case names or other sources, so the specifics of the ruling are not clear from it. The headline's framing centers on Trump's reaction rather than on the elections. Right-leaning outlets had not reported this story at the time of writing, while left-leaning and alternative outlets had. The alternative and independent coverage takes a different angle from the left's. The Hill previews five state Supreme Court races to watch and explains the types of contests and what is at stake. Truthout focuses on Ohio, framing the race around billionaire and dark money influence and a push for a fully Republican court. The two sides' pieces do not overlap on facts, because one concerns Trump's reaction to a court and the other concerns state judicial elections.