So much attention is focused on the presidential race and the role that abortion will play in that election—but a pair of recent state supreme court decisions restricting abortion have supercharged the stakes on some crucial down-ballot races, too.

Earlier this month, the Arizona Supreme Court, in a 7–2 decision, revived an 1864 law that prohibits abortion in cases where a patient would suffer the permanent impairment of a major bodily function, as well as cases of sexual assault or incest. In Florida, state justices also overturned a decades-old precedent recognizing reproductive rights. A Florida ballot initiative amending the state constitution to declare that “no law shall prohibit, penalize, delay, or restrict abortion before viability or when necessary to protect the patient’s health,” which must clear a 60 percent threshold, is already set to go before voters. Arizona voters, like those in more than a dozen other states, may also have a chance to weigh in on whether to write reproductive rights into their state’s constitution.

Ballot measures have unquestionably been a tremendous success for supporters of reproductive rights and may help turn out Democrats who might otherwise stay home. Voters in Ohio, a red state, wrote reproductive rights into their constitution last year. A range of states, from Michigan to Kansas to Montana, have all passed abortion-rights ballot initiatives since 2022.

But the recent spate of decisions is also a reminder of the importance of state judicial elections. For one thing, there is a real chance that voters will approve ballot initiatives only to see them gutted by state judges. The balance of power of courts in key states that have just passed a ballot initiative, including........

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