Republicans retained their majority on Ohio's top court and are leading in a race to unseat a sitting Democratic justice on North Carolina's following an election cycle in which Democrats had hoped the issue of abortion access would help liberal candidates secure seats on state supreme courts nationwide.

A justice who wrote a blistering dissent when the Arkansas Supreme Court blocked an abortion-rights measure from the ballot has been elected to lead the court.

The race to lead Arkansas' Supreme Court between two justices who split on whether voters should have the chance to scale back the state's abortion ban remained too early to call hours after polls closed Tuesday.