Rebecca Duncan
2017 - Present
2025
7
Rebecca Duncan is a judge for Position 2 of the Oregon Supreme Court. She assumed office in 2017. Her current term ends on January 6, 2025.
Duncan won re-election for the Position 2 judge of the Oregon Supreme Court outright in the primary on May 21, 2024, after the general election was canceled.
Duncan was first appointed to the court by Gov. Kate Brown (D) in 2017.[1] She was subsequently elected to the court in a nonpartisan election in 2018. To read more about judicial selection in Oregon, click here.
Duncan was previously a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals, Position 2. She was appointed to the court by Governor Ted Kulongoski (D) on January 7, 2010, to fill the seat vacated by Walt Edmonds.[2] She was elected to her appointed seat in 2010 and re-elected in 2016.
In 2020, Ballotpedia published Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship, a study examining the partisan affiliation of all state supreme court justices in the country. As part of this study, we assigned each justice a Confidence Score describing our confidence in the degree of partisanship exhibited by the justices' past partisan behavior, before they joined the court.[3] Duncan received a confidence score of Mild Democrat.[4] Click here to read more about this study.
Biography
Duncan received an undergraduate degree from the University of Wisconsin at Madison in 1993 and her J.D. from the University of Michigan Law School in 1996.[2][5] Prior to her service on the Oregon Supreme Court, she was a judge on the Oregon Court of Appeals, Position 2, from 2010 to 2017. Before her time as a judge, she worked as an assistant chief defender with the Appellate Division of the Office of Public Defense Services.
Duncan worked in the State Department’s Office of the Legal Adviser in Washington, D.C., supporting the Office of Law Enforcement and Intelligence, while in law school. Upon graduation, Duncan served as a trial attorney with the Metropolitan Public Defender in Washington and Multnomah counties.[2]
Elections
2024
See also: Oregon Supreme Court elections, 2024
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 2
Incumbent Rebecca Duncan won election outright in the primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 2 on May 21, 2024.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ |  | Rebecca Duncan (Nonpartisan) | 97.8 | 584,752 |
| Other/Write-in votes | 2.2 | 12,979 | ||
| Total votes: 597,731 | |||
 = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
Endorsements
Ballotpedia is gathering information about candidate endorsements. To send us an endorsement, click here.
2018
- See also: Oregon Supreme Court elections, 2018
Nonpartisan primary election
Nonpartisan primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 2
Incumbent Rebecca Duncan won election outright in the primary for Oregon Supreme Court Position 2 on May 15, 2018.
Candidate | % | Votes | ||
| ✔ | | Rebecca Duncan (Nonpartisan) | 100.0 | 521,465 |
| Total votes: 521,465 | |||
| = candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey. | ||||
| If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey. | ||||
Do you want a spreadsheet of this type of data? Contact our sales team. | ||||
2016
Duncan won re-election on May 17, running unopposed.[6]
| Oregon Court of Appeals, Position 2, 2016 | ||
|---|---|---|
| Candidate | Vote % | Votes |
 Rebecca Duncan Incumbent (unopposed) |
98.87% | 645,237 |
| Write-in votes | 1.13% | 7,368 |
| Total Votes (100% reporting) | 652,605 | |
| Source: Oregon Secretary of State Official Results | ||
2010
- See also: Oregon judicial elections, 2010
In Oregon, appointed judges are required to run in the election following their appointment if they wish to remain in office. Accordingly, Duncan ran unopposed for election to the Oregon Court of Appeals and was elected on November 2, 2010, with 98.21 percent of the vote.[7]
Campaign themes
2024
Ballotpedia survey responses
See also: Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection
Rebecca Duncan did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.
Campaign finance summary
Note: The finance data shown here comes from the disclosures required of candidates and parties. Depending on the election or state, this may represent only a portion of all the funds spent on their behalf. Satellite spending groups may or may not have expended funds related to the candidate or politician on whose page you are reading this disclaimer. Campaign finance data from elections may be incomplete. For elections to federal offices, complete data can be found at the FEC website. Click here for more on federal campaign finance law and here for more on state campaign finance law.
Analysis
Ballotpedia Courts: State Partisanship (2020)
Rebecca
Duncan
Oregon
- Partisan Confidence Score:
Mild Democrat - Judicial Selection Method:
Elected - Key Factors:
- Appointed by a Democratic governor
- State was a Democratic trifecta at time of appointment
Partisan Profile
Details:
Duncan was appointed by Gov. Kate Brown (D) to fill a vacancy. At the time of her appointment, the state of Oregon was a Democratic trifecta.
State supreme court judicial selection in Oregon
- See also: Judicial selection in Oregon
The seven justices on the Oregon Supreme Court are selected through nonpartisan elections.[8] Judges' terms begin on the first Monday in January following their election.[9]
Judges serve six-year terms. Judges seeking to serve more than one term must stand for re-election.[8]
Qualifications
To serve on this court, a judge must be:
- a U.S. citizen;
- a state resident for at least three years;
- a state bar member; and
- under the age of 75.[8]
Chief justice
The chief justice is selected by peer vote and serves in that capacity for a six-year term.
Vacancies
If a midterm vacancy occurs on the court, the governor appoints a replacement. The appointee serves until the next general election occurring 61 or more days after the vacancy, at which point he or she may run for election.[8] The map below highlights how vacancies are filled in state supreme courts across the country.
See also
2024 Elections
External links
|
Candidate Oregon Supreme Court Position 2 |
Officeholder Oregon Supreme Court Position 2 |
Personal |
Footnotes
- ↑ Oregon Judicial Branch, "Biography - Justice Rebecca Duncan," accessed July 1, 2021
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Office of Oregon Governor Ted Kulongoski, "Governor announces appointment to Oregon court of appeals," January 7, 2010
- ↑ We calculated confidence scores by collecting several data points such as party registration, donations, and previous political campaigns.
- ↑ The five possible confidence scores were: Strong Democrat, Mild Democrat, Indeterminate, Mild Republican, and Strong Republican.
- ↑ Oregon State Bar, "Oregon State Bar Judicial Voters Guide 2010," accessed July 1, 2021
- ↑ Oregon Office of the Secretary of State, "Election History," accessed July 1, 2021
- ↑ Oregon Secretary of State, "Election History," accessed July 1, 2021
- ↑ 8.0 8.1 8.2 8.3 American Judicature Society, "Methods of Judicial Selection: Oregon," archived October 3, 2014
- ↑ Oregon State Legislature, "Oregon Constitution," accessed August 29, 2014
| |||||||||||
| |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Current |
• Stephen K. Bushong • Rebecca Duncan • Roger J. DeHoog • Meagan A. Flynn • Chris Garrett • Bronson James • Aruna Masih | ||
| Former |
Thomas Balmer • Martha Walters • Robert Durham • Paul DeMuniz • Michael Gillette • Rives Kistler • Virginia Linder • David V. Brewer (Oregon) • Jack Landau • Adrienne Nelson • Richard C. Baldwin • Lynn Nakamoto • Betty C. Roberts • | ||
Federal courts:
Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals • U.S. District Court: District of Oregon • U.S. Bankruptcy Court: District of Oregon
State courts:
Oregon Supreme Court • Oregon Court of Appeals • Oregon Circuit Courts • Oregon Tax Court • Oregon County Courts • Oregon Justice Courts • Oregon Municipal Courts
State resources:
Courts in Oregon • Oregon judicial elections • Judicial selection in Oregon
