Female candidates in lead against men in contested judicial races. Why?

Female judicial candidates swept all nine contested Clark County races against male opponents this cycle, results show, reinforcing a pattern first seen in 2020 when women won 15 of 18 contested District Court races against men. Among the defeated incumbents was Las Vegas Municipal Court Judge Matthew Walker, who earned the highest retention rating in the Review-Journal’s 2025 Judicial Performance Evaluation with over 94 percent of attorneys recommending he stay on the bench. Challenger Amanda Pellizzari defeated Walker with 55.8 percent of the vote to his 44.2 percent and also outraised him, reporting $150,000 in contributions to his $108,000.

Observers offer differing explanations for the trend. Public defender Alex Hubert, who challenged District Judge Tara Clark Newberry, said male candidates face an "uphill battle" and that people are afraid to discuss the dynamic publicly for fear of sounding misogynist. "You will not hear people go on the record talking about it," Hubert said. Newberry, who led with 63 percent of the vote, said she does not believe gender should matter if a candidate is competent, though she acknowledged, "Something has shifted."

UNLV political science professor Rebecca Gill said she was not surprised by the results. She noted women tend to run only when highly qualified and that voters have grown accustomed to seeing women in judgeships, roles that may lack high prestige or pay. "It is much easier for the general voting public to envision a woman as a trial court judge compared to a similarly situated citizen maybe in the '70s or the '80s," Gill said, adding she does not think voters necessarily prefer women simply because they are women.

Longtime political consultant Tom Letizia traced a shift to the 2018 confirmation hearings for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, which featured sexual assault allegations. "We saw women starting to turn on men, especially Democrat women," Letizia said. "For some reason, they didn't want old white men on the bench."

Sources: Las Vegas Review-Journal