Colleen Melody, Mike Diaz, Debra Stephens up in Washington State Supreme Court contests; Theo Angelis in a competitive

race

This summer, voters in Washington State will be tasked with a responsibility they haven’t had in eons: deciding which candidates should advance to the November general election in four different contests for the Supreme Court, the state’s top judicial body. With no U.S. Senate race in the Evergreen State this cycle, these are the only statewide candidate elections on the ballot. We at NPI have made a commitment to track them, report on them, and poll on them as a public service to the people of Washington. We launched our Supreme Court Elections Visualizer a few months ago to make them easier to track. Today, we have poll findings for every single race to share.

Our spring 2026 Washington Civic Heartbeat survey finds that a large majority of voters are unsure about their choices in every race (which is what we expect to see in nonpartisan judicial races), with voters who do have opinions gravitating to two of the incumbent justices seeking to remain on the Court and a third incumbent starting out with a tougher road to climb. Meanwhile, of the one open seat that is on the August ballot, voters with an opinion have a clear favorite. Here’s the breakdown:

Position 1: Appointed Justice Colleen Melody, chosen by Governor Bob Ferguson to take over for Mary Yu, is facing two challengers who are more conservative than her, attorneys Scott Edwards and Laura Christensen Colberg. Melody received 14% in our survey, followed by Colberg at 9% and Edwards at 7%.

Position 3: This is the seat being vacated by Justice Raquel Montoya-Lewis, an Inslee appointee. Montoya-Lewis isn’t stepping down early, so it’s an open seat with no incumbent in the mix. However, one of the contenders looks like an incumbent in the survey. That’s Appeals Court Judge Mike Diaz, who got 17% in our survey. Rival King County Superior Court Judge Jaime Hawk got 9% support and Mason County Superior Court Judge David Stevens received 8% support.

https://www.nwprogressive.org/weblog/2026/06/colleen-melody-mike-diaz-debra-stephens-up-in-washington-state-supreme-court-contests-theo-angelis-in-a-competitive-race.html