Georgia Supreme Court races turn into partisan battleground
Georgia Democrats are aggressively campaigning to unseat two sitting Supreme Court justices, a marked escalation in officially nonpartisan races long treated as sleepy, low-profile contests.
At last week’s annual Democratic gala in Atlanta, party leaders made no secret of their push to elect left-leaning challengers Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin over incumbent Justices Charlie Bethel and Sarah Warren, who are both backed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp.
“I need you to give them money. I need you to get on those phone banks. I need you to get on those doors,” Democratic Party of Georgia Chair Charlie Bailey told hundreds of attendees from the stage.
U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff said they would “stand as sentinels defending the rule of law and civil and human rights.” And even congressional candidate Shawn Harris, one of the party’s rising stars, joined in by introducing a flashy video touting the challengers.
The blunt partisan pitch reflects how dramatically these once-obscure judicial contests have changed. Allies of Jordan and Rankin launched TV ads last week paired with canvasses, phone banks and press events centered on abortion rights and corporate influence ahead of the May 19 vote.
The aggressive strategy has rattled defenders of the incumbent justices, putting them on their heels in races they once expected to win easily. It has also alarmed some legal observers who worry it could erode the judiciary’s impartial standing.
“Our entire justice system hinges on the presumption of regularity — that everyone is trying to do a good job in a neutral way,” said Andrew Fleischman, a prominent Atlanta appellate lawyer.
“It falls short all the time, but if people don’t believe that it is trying, they will not respect the results. And worse, the judges might internalize the public view of them as mere partisans.”
Others have gone further. Steve Sadow, an Atlanta attorney who represented President Donald Trump in the Fulton County election interference case, blasted the Democratic effort as “unprofessional trash.”
The justices themselves have leaned into the nonpartisan argument.
“Our Constitution itself mandates that this be a nonpartisan race,” Bethel told the “Politically Georgia” podcast. “I’m fully committed to that. I will not engage in a partisan fight about my role on the court or the court itself.”
Democrats, of course, point to the long history of Republican support for incumbents, including a recent fundraiser Kemp hosted for Bethel and Warren.
Jordan has argued that line was crossed years ago by governors who tapped appointees, passed laws to expand the bench and financed ads for their favored candidates.
“That Pandora’s box was opened. The people need a choice in this state, and they need to know folks’ values,” said Jordan, a former Democratic state legislator who was the party’s nominee for attorney general in 2022.
Both Jordan and Rankin have been careful in how they frame their candidacies, declining to address specifics of cases they could one day hear lest they risk violating judicial rules.
But they make no secret of their broader argument that the court needs new voices and greater accountability. They also scheduled an event with the mother of Amber Thurman — a reminder of the political fallout from the state’s six-week abortion ban, which was upheld by the court’s Republican-backed incumbents.
And their newest ad casts them as ordinary Georgians going up against an entrenched power structure.
“These guys have enough friends on the Supreme Court,” Rankin says in the spot, pointing at older white men across a courtroom counsel table.
Jordan closes with a direct appeal: “We’ll fight for you.”
Sleepy no more
Georgia’s judicial elections are nonpartisan, but politics often play a quiet role.
The nine-member court has been largely shaped by Republican governors, who appoint justices to vacancies that give them the advantages of incumbency before they face voters.
Justice John Ellington, who won an open seat in 2018, is the only member of the bench who was not first appointed to the job.
That formula has proved formidable. Since the Georgia Supreme Court was established in 1845, incumbents seeking another term have almost always won. The last sitting justice to lose reelection was in 1922.
It’s not for lack of trying. One of the rare campaigns against a sitting justice came in 2006 when Justice Carol Hunstein faced former Bush administration attorney Mike Wiggins, who called her a soft-on-crime liberal who legislated from the bench. Her landslide victory was widely seen as a triumph for judicial independence.
Two years ago, former Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow tried to turn his challenge against Justice Andrew Pinson, a Kemp appointee, into a referendum on abortion rights.
But Barrow’s 10-point defeat came at the hands of a bipartisan coalition that rallied behind the incumbent — with key help from Kemp’s big-spending political network — while major Democratic forces stayed mostly on the sidelines.
This time is different. Democrats are betting that history can be broken and that judicial races can become another front in Georgia’s broader political war. So far, the party has spent more than $1 million on ads, including campaign-style attacks scrutinizing the incumbents’ judicial records.
“Seats on the Supreme Court of Georgia do not belong to governors or to political parties — they belong to the people of Georgia,” said Bailey, adding that the party will continue to back “pro-rights, pro-democracy candidates to sit on our state’s highest court.”
The challengers are also drawing support from national abortion-rights groups. Reproductive Freedom for All endorsed both candidates this month, and Planned Parenthood Votes announced a $750,000 ad campaign portraying the incumbents as “politicians in robes.”
Critics worry this could be the start of a judicial arms race in Georgia. If parties decide Supreme Court races are just another political battlefield, the money, attack ads and outside involvement are likely to grow. Some warn Georgia could eventually look more like Wisconsin, where court contests have turned into expensive ideological brawls.
“Whether that makes us Wisconsin or not, it does seem to be the trajectory, the playbook that’s being used‚” said Bethel, who notes his bipartisan backing includes former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jason Carter. To him, accusations that he’s politically biased cut especially deep.
“When people say you’re not being impartial,” he said, “they’re saying you lied when you took your oath.”
A Warren aide accused Democrats of a “false, negative and hyper-partisan race in an election that is supposed to be nonpartisan.”
That debate is sharpened by the reality of what the court actually does.
While fights over abortion or elections grab the spotlight, most cases involve murder appeals, criminal matters and technical legal disputes. The court’s day-to-day work is often far less political than the campaigns can make it seem.
Veteran attorney Noah Pines said he already sees signs of a Wisconsin-style turn.
“This is the worst I’ve ever seen it,” he said. “Attacking the umpire for enforcing the rules goes too far. And I’m furious it’s come to my judicial system.”
Rankin, though, said the challenges are rooted in genuine disagreement with the court’s direction and a belief voters deserve a clearer choice.
“It’s time for people to be bold and to step up and say something when you see something that you just don’t agree with,” she said on the “Politically Georgia” podcast.
“And there have been decisions that have come down from the court that we just don’t agree with.”
About the Author
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
