Well folks, its Halloween in 2025, and you know what that means…. its time for my latest breakdown of coroner elections in America! That’s right folks, in over 1,000 counties in America, coroners are directly elected within their county. Almost all of these are elected on a partisan ballot!
Our system of investigating death in America is very disjointed. The coroner system exists in half of counties while other jurisdictions have moved to Medical Examiners (appointed folks who are trained experts) at a county or regional/state level. NPR broke down the current death investigation system here.
As of this writing, 1,273 counties elect coroners on a partisan ballot. Only 8 are officially non-partisan elections. Meanwhile, States like Montana and California often have counties where Coroner gets merged with another office (mainly Sheriff) and the ballot line literally states “Sheriff-Coroner.” Other places like Washington have small counties where coroner departments are extensions of sheriff offices. In Nevada, the smaller rural counties normally contract with larger counties for their death investigations. These multi-county arrangements exist in other rural areas as well.
Many counties have simply moved to appoint their coroner (often by the county commission) or switch to a Medical Examiner. The difference between an appointed coroner and a medical examiner is that a medical examiner is guaranteed to be a trained professional, usually a doctor, who specializes in death investigation. Appointed coroners may have similar training but its not as much a guarantee. Note that all the states without county breakdowns on the above map use a Medical Examiner system.
Previous Coroner Breakdowns
Back on Halloween of 2017, I did my first deep dive looking at coroner elections in America. I followed that up four years later, with a breakdown on Halloween of 2021. In both these articles I delved more into different debates around coroner elections and the differing requirements that exist in each state. This article will largely serve as a quick partisan update. I wanted to structure out these updates every four years, as it gives all states enough time to hold elections for the post. State election dates can vary, with some coroners elected during the midterm, others during President, or others in off-cycle spring local elections.
Back in 2017, the partisan breakdown of coroners in America could be seen below.
Republicans held far more posts, but especially in the south and Appalachia there was strong contingent of Democratic coroners. This reflected the remaining down-ballot strength Democrats still had in the these regions. These were areas that once backed Bill Clinton and local democrats to office. As they trended to the right in federal races, the down-ballot ALWAYS lags behind, with ticket splitting being common. On top of this, many coroners rarely face challengers, allowing longtime democrats to just get re-elected easily time after time.
However, that down-ballot Democratic strength fades with time. This was seen in the 2021 coroner update. Many rural democrats remaining, but they’d taken a hit.
Between 2017 and 2021, right over 100 coroner posts went from Democrats to Republicans. I documented this in my 2021 piece, but many/most of these flips were not incumbents being defeated. The most common reason for a flip is either an open seat, which would often see only Republicans file, or the democratic incumbent running for re-election has a republican. A batch of counties did flip from Republicans to Democrats, namely the handful of suburban counties in places like Colorado, Illinois, or Pennsylvania that still elect the position.
The Coroner 2025 Breakdown
Now, finally, we come to the 2025 Coroner Partisan makeup breakdown. The full results can be seen below!
Just like between 2017 and 2021, the map got much redder. Also we saw a big jump in counties not having anyone to run for the position. South Dakota and Ohio were especially larger on this from. I’ll talk about that more in a few moments.
First, the map below shows how counties shifted between 2021 and 2025. In the last four years, 123 counties went from Democrat to Republican.
If we break down the shift from 2017 all the way to 2025, we see that Republicans have gained 234 coroner posts from Democrats. These overwhelming number came from the south and Appalachia.
Independent candidates have racked up increased wins as well, expanding their holding by almost 40 seats. Some of this is people winning as independents, something more common in Louisiana thanks to its Jungle Primary system, but we also have Democratic incumbents running for re-election as independents. Democrats did make gains in those suburban counties, as mentioned, but there are far fewer of those.
The full breakdown of coroners by state can be seen below. Note that states like South Dakota and Ohio saw many fewer coroners elected because of a lack of candidates in counties. Other states like Wisconsin and Illinois moved more of their offices to appointed positions.
The shifts in coroner races have brought their partisanship more in line with the Presidential toplines. There are still 134 Democratic coroners in Trump counties. Back in 2017, this was over 350!
With that, lets look at some results in different states.
How Different States Voted
A handful of key states stand out that I want to go over here. I unfortunately did not have the time to get into detailed maps for every state – as redistricting coverage has taken up a good deal of my attention. However, some states I absolutely wanted to cover are seen below. I’d also like to get into some different states and races in future Halloween articles for next year and the year after.
The Republican Gains
Many states saw massive Republican gains in coroner posts. No state saw this more than Arkansas. Back in 2017, it was overwhelmingly democratic down ballot despite having shifted to the Republicans a decade earlier. Over the last eight years, Republicans have gained a staggering 35 coroner posts.
Arkansas’ story is similar to many states. It shifted to the Republicans federally in the 2000s, Republicans flipped the legislature there in 2012, and slowly but surely the Republicans have made gains down-ballot. Often as incumbents retire, the posts automatically are won by Republicans. Sometime Democratic incumbents switch parties as well.
Kentucky is a very similar story to Arkansas. Once a more Democratic state, the county offices were heavily Democratic just eight years ago. Now Republicans have flipped a net of 31 posts in the last eight years.
I actually wrote an article on Kentucky’s 2022 coroner elections for my newsletter. You can read that here for far more details. One map I made for that post, seen below, highlights how many of the 2022 flips were from open seats or party switching. Only 4 of 26 flips came from a Democratic incumbent losing re-election.
For Kentucky, I also did a seperate article for how Pike County, an 80%+ Trump county, still elected a Democrat in an open race in 2022.
You can read that story, a good example of small rural counties and local dynamics, here.
Mississippi was another state to see major Republican gains in coroner posts. Republicans won a majority of the posts after the 2023 state elections. Since 2017, 20 seats have flipped.
I also wrote an article on the 2023 Mississippi coroner elections, with precinct maps of notable races. You can read that article here!. In that article, I point out again how only a few flips were incumbents losing. A large majority of counties did not even have contested races for the post.
Alabama is another state to see large Republican gains. Democrats are quickly seeing their posts retreat to just the Black belt of the state.
Missouri, meanwhile, has seen a massive drop in the Democratic coroner ranks. Since 2017, this one-swing-state has just 6 Democratic coroners left.
Further up in the Midwest, Republicans have slowly consolidated coroner posts in the state of Indiana. The breakdown is not just 87 to 5, and only 2 of these are counties Harris won.
Btw I wanted to highlight Rush county, the lone area to flip to Democrats. This deep red county flipping to Democrats may stun folks. You may wonder… was there a scandal with the Republican? Is that county really democratic down-ballot? Nope, the answer is simple. The incumbent retired and the only candidate who filed decided to file as a Democrat.
Sometimes its just that simple. There are a few cases of this across the country.
Lets look at a few other states
Aligning Partisanship
As I mentioned earlier, partisan shift in coroner races often align the post with the Presidential topline in the county. In the case of Colorado, these flips occurred with both parties. Democrats flipped four seats in Clinton/Biden/Harris counties, while Republicans flipped four of their own in Trump counties.
More flips could come in Colorado, as a handful Democrats still sit in Trump counties, but a few more Republicans still sit in Harris counties as well. I wouldn’t be shocked if we see more movement in the next four to eight years.
Over in Illinois, Republicans continued to make gains in the increasingly Republican down-state rurals. However, Democrats have flipped three major historically-Republican counties around Chicago.
The Democratic flips of the Lake, DuPage, and Kane county coroner offices reflect a major shift in the “Collar county” region – basically the Chicago suburbs. These areas, DuPage and Kane especially, were historically very Republican down-ballot. However, in the Trump era these areas have become more Democratic down-ballot as well. This is the same dynamic happening in reverse in the rural counties. I plan to delve more into the Chicago suburbs and coroner elections in a future article. for Halloween, likely next year.
Pennsylvania has likewise seen counties shift within it to better reflect Presidential partisanship. I wrote about this back in Halloween of 2024. Democrats flipped coroner posts in historically-Republican suburbs around Philadelphia , while Democrats lost their posts in the old working class western counties.
Several of these flips, meanwhile, were actually due to incumbents losing. Chester ousted its Republican incumbent in 2017, while Westmoreland ousted its Democratic incumbent in 2021. I have precinct maps and more details on those races in the above linked article.
Lack of Candidates
I mentioned that the latest round of elections saw more areas see no candidate run for coroner. In a state like Ohio, for example, coroner candidates must be licensed to practice medicine. This can limit the abialable andidate pool in rural counties. Hence in the Ohio elections, 11 counties did not have a candidate for coroner.
The biggest result of this is counties working on partnerships with neighboring counties, or seeking to contract someone to perform the needed services. The increase in empty posts led to the Ohio legislature considering a bill to end elections for coroner and instead leave it to county commissions to make appointments. This legislation, originally part of the state budget, was eventually stripped out and did not become law. As of this writing, coroner elections remain in Ohio.
A similar story happened in South Dakota. Several counties saw no one file for coroner. Already much of the state has appointed coroners, leaving the total number of elected coroners in the state down to just 30.
South Dakota was especially tricky to research due to lack of local news coverage and limited resources online. I get a sense from scattered reports that some of these counties may use their Sheriff as the coroner. Whether this is formal or due to a lack of coroner candidates is unclear, and is an example of research I’d like to do if/when I have more time.
Future States and Analysis
In future updates I’d like to delve more into states like New York, which uses an odd system where several counties elect multiple coroners. I also went to get into South Dakota and Montana coroner postings, and the issue of counties combining offices. Unfortunately, doing to 2025 marking the slow decline of American democracy, I’ve been pulled into more focus on redistricting coverage via my newsletter. I was unable to delve into some states as much as I would have liked. Regardless, however, I resolved to get a full partisan update done!
Look to more coroner articles next Halloween! And keep up with current events via my substack!