6 candidates compete for 2 seats on Michigan's Supreme Court
A pair of seats on the Michigan Supreme Court are up for grabs on Tuesday, Nov. 3.
Chief Justice Megan Cavanagh, first elected in 2018, and Justice Noah Hood are the Democratic Party's nominees. Cavanagh was unanimously chosen by her colleagues to succeed Elizabeth Clement as chief justice, as previously reported. Whitmer appointed Hood in April 2025 to fill the seat vacated by former Chief Justice Elizabeth Clement. He is running for his first full term.
Republicans nominated Casandra Morse-Bills and Michael Warren. The U.S. Taxpayers Party nominated Thomas Howe and Jody White. Both seats are for a full, eight-year term.
While Michigan Supreme Court seats are nonpartisan, candidates are nominated at state party conventions. Democratic justices currently hold a 6-1 majority on the Court. If Morse-Bills and Warren are elected, Republicans, who have not won a Michigan Supreme Court seat since 2018, would still not have a shot at a majority on the Court until at least 2028.
Both seats are for a full, eight-year term.
The candidates
A native Detroiter, Hood has served on the Michigan Supreme Court since 2025. After previously working in the U.S. Attorney's Office in Toledo, Hood was appointed to the Third Circuit Court in Detroit in 2019 and the Michigan Court of Appeals in 2022. He also presided over the Veterans Treatment Court. Hood is a graduate of Yale University and earned his law degree from Harvard Law School.
Cavanagh was first elected to the Michigan Supreme Court in 2018 and is the daughter of Michael Cavanagh, who served as a Michigan Supreme Court Justice from 1983 to 2015. Her uncle, Jerome Cavanagh, was Detroit's 64th mayor. Cavanagh graduated from the University of Michigan with a degree in environmental engineering and earned her law degree from Wayne State University Law School.
Warren has served on the Oakland County Circuit Court and was appointed to the Sixth Circuit Court in December 2022 by former Gov. John Engler. Warren earned a bachelor's degree from Wayne State, is a graduate of the University of Michigan Law School, is a business law professor at Wayne State and previously taught constitutional law at Western Michigan University's Cooley Law School.
Morse-Bills presides over Michigan's 23rd Judicial Circuit Court, spanning Alcona, Arenac, Iosco and Oscoda counties, and probate, district and circuit courts. A former Oscoda County Prosecuting Attorney, Morse-Bills was first elected to the bench in 2018 and then again in 2024. Morse-Bills completed her undergraduate degree at the University of South Florida and earned her Juris Doctor at the Thomas Cooley Law School in Lansing.
While Howe and White were nominated by the U.S. Taxpayers Party, neither is licensed to practice law in Michigan, a state requirement, nor is an attorney. In addition to the license requirements, candidates must have practiced law in Michigan for at least 50 years and must be under 70 years of age when elected or appointed.
Howe and White are senior advocates with the Michigan Judicial Probate Integrity Project, a volunteer-based, grassroots effort aimed at "exposing systemic failures in Michigan's Probate courts and advocating for meaningful reform," according to the group's website.
