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Endorses O'Donnell

The race

Washington Supreme Court Position 4 is an open seat on November 3, 2026: Justice Charles W. Johnson reached the state constitution's mandatory retirement age of 75 and is ineligible to run again. Only two candidates filed, so both advanced from the August 4 primary to November: Court of Appeals Judge Ian Birk and King County Superior Court Judge Sean O'Donnell. The race is officially nonpartisan — and this is the one Washington seat where the endorsement map does not split along party lines, which is itself the story. The Washington State Republican Party declined to recommend either candidate; the Seattle Times endorsed O'Donnell; The Stranger endorsed Birk.

Ian Birk — Judge, Washington Court of Appeals, Division I. Birk has served on all three levels of Washington's appellate courts and has written more than 200 legal opinions, after roughly two decades in private practice representing individuals and families. His endorsers include former Justice Mary Yu, four current Supreme Court justices, former Governor Jay Inslee, Insurance Commissioner Patty Kuderer, King County Executive Girmay Zahilay, Senate Majority Leader Jamie Pedersen and several other Democratic legislators, Planned Parenthood, Third Act, and The Stranger. In the campaign he said he would like the Supreme Court to slow down its rulemaking process and work with the Legislature on rolling out the court's new public-defender caseload standards. He also drew a documented rebuke during the campaign: after he called O'Donnell a "closet Republican," dozens of judges signed a letter calling out his partisan comments.

Sean O'Donnell — King County Superior Court judge for 13 years, including service as chief criminal judge and chief family court judge, and a past president of the Washington State Superior Court Judges' Association. Before the bench he spent 12 years as a King County senior deputy prosecutor, including service on the Green River Task Force. He has also sat on the Supreme Court as a pro tem justice. His endorsers genuinely cross the aisle: former Republican Attorney General Rob McKenna, former Democratic Governors Christine Gregoire and Gary Locke, Justice Helen Whitener, former Justice Bobbe Bridge, U.S. Reps. Adam Smith and Marilyn Strickland, LiUNA Local 292, and The Seattle Times; several county Democratic parties also back him. His campaign runs on experience, impartiality, and getting things done, and he has criticized the court's public-defender caseload decision as made "without a plan how to make it work."

Pros and cons

Birk: Credits: The deepest appellate résumé in any of this year's five races — service on all three appellate levels and 200-plus authored opinions is a proven appellate record, not a promise; support from four sitting justices who have read his work; his own stated wish to slow the court's rulemaking and coordinate with the Legislature is a restraint-adjacent position we credit. Dirt and debits: The "closet Republican" attack on a fellow judge — and the letter from dozens of judges rebuking the partisan comment — is documented conduct in this very campaign, and it is the opposite of the impartial temperament he advertises; his endorsement cluster (Planned Parenthood, The Stranger, the Democratic legislative leadership, including the income tax's sponsor) ties him to the court's progressive wing.

O'Donnell: Credits: Thirteen years on the state's largest trial court, as chief criminal and chief family judge and as president of the statewide superior court judges' association — the administrative record of a judge other judges elected to lead them; a prosecutor's law-and-order formation (Green River Task Force); the only genuinely bipartisan endorsement list in these five races, capped by a former Republican attorney general and the Seattle Times; a concrete, sourced criticism of the court's caseload rulemaking as unplanned. Dirt and debits: He is a trial judge, not an appellate judge — his supreme court record is unproven (recorded as unproven, not a demerit); most of his named endorsers are still Democrats, so the bipartisan file is real but not balanced; and his pro tem supreme court service is brief by definition.

Record gaps

OUR CALL

Our call: endorse Sean O'Donnell. Disclosed basis: record and endorsers in a nonpartisan race where both men draw Democratic support, so the discriminating evidence is temperament and breadth. O'Donnell's peers elected him to lead the state's trial judges; he ran courtrooms as chief criminal judge; a former Republican attorney general and the Seattle Times vouch for him alongside Democratic governors. Birk is the more credentialed appellate technician, and we say so plainly — but he used this campaign to brand a fellow judge a "closet Republican," drawing a written rebuke from dozens of judges. A justice's first qualification is impartial temperament, proven in conduct. On the documented record, O'Donnell has it and Birk, in this campaign, showed he can lose it.

Vote Sean O'Donnell.

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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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