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Per-judge retention calls inside

The ballot

Tennessee Supreme Court justices are appointed by the governor, confirmed by the General Assembly, and then face statewide yes-or-no retention elections every eight years. A majority of YES votes retains the justice. This cycle's retention election was held August 6, 2026 — not November 3 — and this guide is written as the permanent record of it: both justices were retained, and the margins are printed below as verified results, never retro-edited into the calls, which were made on the pre-election record.

The evaluation correction, printed up front: older references (including the research inventory behind this guide) describe a Tennessee Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission that "must recommend for or against retention" under Tenn. Code §17-4-201. That commission expired on June 30, 2014 — the Administrative Office of the Courts archives its work under the heading "The Judicial Performance Evaluation Commission no longer exists." There was no official evaluation of these justices in 2026. The functional evaluations on the record are the two the system actually produced: the General Assembly's confirmation votes and the voters' own August verdicts. Both are printed per judge.

Justice Mary L. Wagner

Appointed by: Governor Bill Lee (announced February 1, 2024); joined the court September 2024, filling the vacancy from Justice Roger Page's retirement. Retained August 6, 2026, with 72.4% YES.

Credits: Shelby County (30th Judicial District) circuit judge from 2016 — appointed by Governor Bill Haslam, then elected in 2018 and re-elected in 2022, so Memphis voters had already ratified her twice before Lee elevated her. Before the bench: associate at Rice, Amundsen & Caperton and adjunct professor at the University of Memphis School of Law (University of Colorado at Boulder; Memphis J.D.). Governor Lee's appointment statement cited her "understanding and respect for the rule of law and commitment to the conservative principles of judicial restraint"; she was a finalist selected through the Governor's Council for Judicial Appointments process alongside two Court of Criminal Appeals judges.

Dirt column: No misconduct, discipline, or adverse finding located in this research. Her two years on the Supreme Court before the retention vote produced no sourced controversy in the coverage worked — appointment reporting, confirmation coverage, and the retention results reporting itself.

Justice Kyle Hixson

Appointed by: Governor Bill Lee; joined the court July 2026, elevated from the Tennessee Court of Criminal Appeals to fill Justice Holly Kirby's vacancy — and faced retention roughly a month later, the Tennessee system working as designed for new appointees. Confirmed by joint convention of the General Assembly on March 5, 2026 (House 74–4; Senate 28–0). Retained August 6, 2026, with 71.4% YES — the smallest margin of the seven appellate judges on the August ballot, still a 43-point win.

Credits: University of Tennessee, bachelor's and J.D.; Knox County prosecutor, including supervisory assistant district attorney service; Criminal Court judge; then Court of Criminal Appeals judge before elevation. The Senate Judiciary Committee advanced him 8 ayes with 1 abstention.

Dirt column — the one documented controversy, at its proven size. At his February 2026 confirmation hearing, senators questioned Hixson about a 2020 recusal challenge from his prosecutor days: whether campaign language required him to recuse from cases. The documented facts: he voluntarily recused from cases where he had taken active supervisory action; he defended the campaign statements as accurate; and the Tennessee Supreme Court ultimately upheld his rulings in that litigation — his own account, given under questioning, was that he stands behind the campaign material. The episode is a real entry — a recusal fight that reached the state's highest court — and its resolution is also part of the record: the challenge failed, and the legislature that heard it confirmed him with four dissenting votes in one chamber and none in the other.

OUR CALL

Mary L. Wagner — RETAIN. Kyle Hixson — RETAIN. (Calls recorded on the pre-election record; the August 6 results — Wagner 72.4% YES, Hixson 71.4% YES — are appended as results, and Tennessee voters agreed with both.)

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. Tennessee offered no evaluation to fail after its commission expired in 2014, and neither file holds proven cause. Wagner brought an elected-twice trial record to the court; Hixson's single controversy was litigated, resolved in his favor by the Supreme Court itself, and aired in a confirmation the legislature passed nearly unanimously. In the whole history of Tennessee retention, voters have removed exactly one appellate judge (Justice Penny White, 1996); nothing in either of these files resembles the record that would justify a second.

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

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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