← Election Series · Down-ballot coverage · Nevada
No endorsement
The race
Nevada Supreme Court Seat B is on the November 3, 2026 ballot, and in the general election it is uncontested: Justice Kristina Pickering, renominated through the primary, is the sole candidate. There is no opponent to profile and we do not manufacture one.
Kristina Pickering — Incumbent justice since January 5, 2009 — the 55th person to serve on this court, first elected in 2008 and sworn in for a third term in January 2021. She has twice served as chief justice (2013–2014 and 2020–2021). One of the first 100 women admitted to the State Bar of Nevada (1977), she returned to Reno after law school to clerk — for three years — for U.S. District Judge Bruce R. Thompson, then built a career in Nevada practice, including at the Reno firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins. Her father's work as a pediatrician traveling rural Nevada is the biographical detail her profiles return to: statewide service familiarity in a state where the court serves Reno and Las Vegas alike.
Credits: Eighteen years on the state's highest court and two chief-justice terms — an institutional record few Nevada jurists match; repeated election and re-election before arriving at an uncontested cycle; a federal clerkship formation. Debits: Nevada's nonpartisan-style judicial elections give voters little ideology evidence, and this pass retrieved no signature opinion, no appointing authority (she was elected, not appointed), and no endorsement file from which to derive alignment — for a court that decides gaming, water, and criminal appeals, the public file is long on service and short on method.
OUR CALL
Our call: no endorsement — uncontested race. Our standard is an affirmatively aligned verified record, and longevity alone is not alignment: after a documented search — the Nevada Appellate Courts' official releases, the State Bar's career profile, the court's chief-justice succession record, and the 2026 judicial elections compilation (sole candidate, renominated) — we have eighteen years of honorable service and no sourced restraint ruling, philosophy statement, or endorsement evidence to grade. We do not endorse on résumé weight alone, and we do not invent an ideology for a judge the record does not describe. Justice Pickering will be re-elected without opposition; our non-endorsement is a statement about our standard, recorded for the permanent file, not a claim against her service.
For the complete Election 2026 breakdown — every race, claim by claim — see the full coverage on our website.
Vote early. Research your candidates. Choose the best moderates, whatever their party — no extremism from either side. And encourage your friends and family to do the same.
Sources
- State Bar of Nevada — Nevada Lawyer profile of Justice Kristina Pickering (January 2009) — sworn in January 5, 2009 as the court's 55th member; among the first 100 women in the Nevada bar (1977); three-year clerkship for U.S. District Judge Bruce R. Thompson — https://nvbar.org/wp-content/uploads/NevLawyer_Jan_2009_Pickering.pdf
- Nevada Appellate Courts — 2021 leadership release — Pickering sworn in for a third term on January 4, 2021 — https://docslib.org/download/11680119/hardesty-begins-term-as-chief-justice-herndon-joins-the-nevada-supreme-court
- List of chief justices of the Supreme Court of Nevada — Pickering's chief-justice terms (January 2013–January 2014; January 2020–January 2021) — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_justices_of_the_Supreme_Court_of_Nevada
- 2026 United States judicial elections — Nevada Seat B: Pickering (first elected 2008) renominated, sole candidate for November 3, 2026 — https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2026_United_States_judicial_elections
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.