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Per-judge retention calls inside

The ballot

The Indiana Tax Court is a one-judge, appellate-level court of statewide jurisdiction over Indiana tax cases — the judge sits alone, so a retention vote here is a verdict on the entire court. Its judge is appointed by the governor and faces a statewide yes-or-no retention vote at the first general election at least two years after appointment, and every 10 years after that. A majority of YES votes retains the judge for a 10-year term. The election is November 3, 2026. One judge is up, standing for his first retention vote.

Indiana has no state performance-evaluation commission, but the Indiana State Bar Association's 2026 Judicial Retention Poll (surveyed September 1–30, 2026) asked the legal profession this exact question about this judge, and the Indiana Supreme Court's Office of Judicial Administration publishes his biography and opinions at courts.in.gov/retention. Both are priced below.

Judge Justin L. McAdam

Appointed by: Governor Eric Holcomb (announced July 11, 2023); took the bench September 1, 2023. He is only the third judge in the Tax Court's history since its creation in 1986, succeeding Judge Martha Blood Wentworth after Judges Fisher and Wentworth. ISBA retention poll: 88% YES.

Credits — and for a tax judge, the pre-bench record is the record. McAdam came to the one-judge tax court from the center of Indiana tax policy: deputy director and chief legal counsel of the Indiana Office of Management & Budget from 2019, advising the executive branch on all aspects of tax and fiscal policy and on the nine finance-focused state agencies, and working with the legislature on tax legislation. Governor Holcomb credited that work with helping maintain Indiana's fiscally healthy position and AAA credit rating. Before OMB: a Governor's Fellowship under Governor Mitch Daniels focused on education policy, two years at the State Budget Agency on education finance, a Harvard Law J.D. (2011), a clerkship with Indiana Supreme Court Justice Brent E. Dickson — who said his clerk's research and draft opinions "rarely needed very much modification at all" and called him "extremely fair" — and First Amendment and campaign-finance practice at The Bopp Law Firm in Terre Haute. He chaired the Distressed Unit Appeal Board (which manages financially troubled school districts, including Muncie and Gary), the Indiana Board for Depositories, and served as a trustee of the Indiana Public Retirement System and the Next Level Indiana Trust Fund. He was one of 10 applicants for the seat.

Dirt column. The structural point a skeptic can fairly make is printed here: McAdam had never been a judge before taking a one-judge court, and he arrived from the executive branch whose tax positions litigants challenge in that court — an institutional-proximity argument, made about many tax-court appointments nationally. What the file does not contain is any instance of it costing a litigant anything: no misconduct, no discipline, no reversal pattern, no adverse evaluation, and no organized campaign against him appears in this research. His ISBA "no" share is 12% — mid-pack for Indiana's 2026 retention class, printed rather than hidden.

OUR CALL

Justin L. McAdam — RETAIN.

Our standard is the same in every state in this coverage: Retain for a serviceable documented record; Do Not Retain requires proven cause — documented misconduct, proven activist judging, or an evaluation failure. The only evaluation Indiana offers says 88% of the profession votes to keep him. His subject-matter preparation for this specific court is the strongest in Indiana's 2026 retention class — he quite literally ran the state's tax-policy legal office — and three years of solo service on the Tax Court have produced no sourced adverse record. The never-a-judge-before-appointment point was the argument against confirming him in 2023; in 2026 the question is what he has done with the job, and nothing documented answers it against him.

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Sources

Election result — November 4, 2026

Result pending. No verified call (Associated Press or official) as of November 4, 2026. This page will be updated when the race is called or certified. The original article above is unchanged.

AI-assisted article — but the sources are human, and the facts are very real.

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