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Endorses Tufte

The race

North Dakota voters decide a ten-year term on the state Supreme Court on November 3, 2026, in a nonpartisan election — the first time since 2018 that a sitting justice running for re-election has drawn an opponent. Justice Jerod E. Tufte, first elected in 2016, seeks a second term; Watford City attorney Ariston Johnson challenges him. Both advanced from the June 9, 2026 top-two primary, which Tufte won going away: 63,253 votes (63.44%) to Johnson's 36,045 (36.15%). North Dakota law bars judicial candidates from personally soliciting contributions or knowing their donors' names — campaign committees handle endorsements and fundraising — and the North Dakota Monitor's reporting documents how thoroughly Republican politics runs through this nominally nonpartisan race anyway: prominent Republicans held a fundraiser for Tufte, various Republicans have endorsed in the race, and both candidates have appeared at Republican events. Alignment below is derived from that reporting and the documented record, disclosed as such.

Jerod E. Tufte — Incumbent justice since 2017. Tufte is seeking his second ten-year term. In 2020, Ballotpedia's judicial-evaluator confidence scoring rated him a "Strong Republican" — the sourced alignment signal in this race. Sitting justices are judged on a decade of work: he has served through a full term on the court that recently upheld the state's ban on gender-transition healthcare for minors (a decision the Monitor's coverage links in this race's context). Republican officials' fundraiser support, described above, is the establishment's read of his record.

Ariston Johnson — Challenger. Johnson is a Watford City-based attorney whose practice has included mineral-rights and civil-rights cases. His campaign's central claim is genuine nonpartisanship: he says he "generally identif[ies] as apolitical," that "I don't bring my politics to work and I would not bring them to the Supreme Court," and — as a stated platform point — he is uncomfortable accepting politicians' endorsements or asking for their support, in contrast to the endorsement machinery around the incumbent. He has never served as a judge.

Pros and cons

Tufte: Credits: A full ten-year term of supreme court service — a proven, gradable record rather than a promise; Ballotpedia's "Strong Republican" confidence rating from his first term; the state Republican establishment's active support, including a dedicated fundraiser, which in a nonpartisan race is the closest thing to a party verification that exists; a 27-point primary win showing broad voter confidence. Dirt and debits: The fundraiser and endorsement traffic around his campaign sits in tension with the judicial code's command that judicial campaign activity remain consistent with judicial independence — reporting by the Monitor documents longtime Republican judges (former Judge Bob Wefald among them) saying the proper course is to avoid political contact altogether, a standard Tufte's committee-handled machine does not meet even if Tufte personally follows the solicitation rules; a decade-long incumbent record also means every unpopular ruling of that court is partly his.

Johnson: Credits: A working western-North-Dakota practice in the state's defining industries (mineral rights) plus civil-rights cases — trial-level breadth from outside the capital; an independence position stated as conduct, not just words (declining to seek politicians' endorsements), which is the cleaner reading of the judicial-conduct rules than his opponent's committee arrangement. Dirt and debits: Never a judge — his appellate record is unproven, recorded as unproven, not a demerit; "apolitical" is a claim about disposition that no voting or ruling record can verify, and it offers voters no interpretive method to predict his votes the way an alignment signal would; he lost the primary by 27 points.

Record gaps

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Jerod E. Tufte. Disclosed basis: record and alignment signals in a nonpartisan race. Tufte offers the only proven file here — a full term on this court, rated "Strong Republican" by Ballotpedia's evaluator scoring, and backed actively by the state's Republican officials, who have read his rulings for a decade and chose to raise money for him. Johnson's independence ethic is genuinely attractive, and we credit the standard he articulates; but "apolitical" with no bench record is a blank page, and a blank page on a supreme court is how voters get surprised. The conduct-rule tension around Tufte's committee is priced above; it is a process criticism, shared by much of the state's judicial establishment in practice, and it does not outweigh a decade of aligned rulings. Proven beats promised.

Vote Jerod E. Tufte.

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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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