JQuery Autocomplete : can't apply style on the focused item

Question

I have a simple input like that

<input id="name-srch" type="text" data-type="string">

And my js (simplified)

$('#name-srch').autocomplete({
  source: function (request, response) {
      $.ajax({
          url: ...,
          data: ...,
          success: function (data) {
              // note that 'data' is the list of elements to display
              response(data)
          }
      });
  },
  select: function (event, ui) {
      // do some stuff
      return false
  },
  focus: function (event, ui) {
      console.log(ui.item.Name) // just to see if the focus event is triggered, and it is
      return false
  }
})
.autocomplete("instance")._renderItem = function (ul, item) {
    return $("<li>")
        .append("<a>" + item.Name + "</a>")
        .appendTo(ul);
};

JQuery Autocomplete fill the <ul> with the <li>s as it should and triggers a focus event on mouseover or down/up arrow key as it should.

The problem is that I want to apply a particular style to the focused item, so in my CSS I have something like that

.ui-state-focus {
    background-color: red;
    font-weight: bold;
}

There is my problem, the focused item never takes the ui-state-focus class and therefore it never takes the defined style.

What am I doing wrong :( ?

EDIT : I already tried to add in my CSS something like

.ui-menu-item:hover {
    background-color: red;
    font-weight: bold;
}

Indeed it does the trick for the hover, but not for the focus via down/up arrow key. Moreover, I don't really like it, I would prefer to make it work the way it's meant to if I can...

Answer 1

I managed to make it work.

For some reason JQuery Autocomplete doesn't apply the ui-state-focus on the focused <li> but does apply the ui-state-active class on the <a> inside the focused <li>. Therefore I can apply the wanted style via

.ui-state-active {
    background-color: red;
    font-weight: bold;
}

I still have no idea why it applies a class only on the <a> inside and not on the <li> as describe on all the documentations but hey, it works...

Answer 2

try this selector:

.ui-menu .ui-menu-item:hover, .ui-state-hover, .ui-widget-content .ui-state-hover, .ui-state-focus, .ui-widget-content .ui-state-focus {
    background-color: red;
    font-weight: bold;
}

There is a JSFIDDLE from another question that I've answered. Just check the last line in the CSS definition:

https://jsfiddle.net/g4bvs0we/5/

Update: I've updated the source code and jsfiddle link. I guess there were issue with CSS rule priority and putting more specific rule should help.

Can you please let me know if this works?