The May 21 primary election feature Republican, Democrat and non-partisan ballots. Early voting runs April 29-May 17, and you can find early voting locations here: https://mvp.sos.ga.gov/s/advanced-voting-location-information
Vote in person if you can — now through May 17 or on May 21.
The non-partisan offices involve local Board of Education races around the state. But two statewide, non-partisan races that are underreported involve a state Supreme Court seat and a state Court of Appeals open slot.
Georgia Supreme Court race
Candidate Andrew Pinson graduated first in his law school class at the University of Georgia and served four years as Georgia’s solicitor general— and perhaps is best known for helping the state win a complicated water rights case. He also served as a clerk for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas.
Gov. Brian Kemp named Pinson to the state Court of Appeals in 2021 and a year later chose him to serve on Georgia’s high court. Although a Republican and former member of the constitutionalist Federalist Society, many Democrat lawyers have endorsed him for re-election. And many Kemps donors helped Pinson amass a formidable treasury.
Don’t underestimate, however, former liberal Democratic U.S. Rep. John Barrow. He is a competitive candidate who was the first to start airing TV commercials. Barrow is mainly running on the abortion issue, saying Georgians “have a state constitutional right to abortion” and hitting Pinson for supporting the state’s “heartbeat” bill that passed the legislature and was signed into law.
Opponents of the six-week ban are challenging it, so the case is no doubt headed back to the state Supreme Court. That’s why Pinson says it’s inappropriate to discuss abortion or any topics that might come before him while serving on the Court. “If judges start talking about issues in cases that come before the court, or that could come before the court and opine, ‘Personally, I think this; personally, I think that,’ man, it just starts chipping away at people’s confidence in our judiciary,” Pinson says.
Georgia Court of Appeals race
The Court of Appeals race pits a white conservative versus an African-American liberal. Research shows that candidate Jeff Davis typically casts Republican ballots in primary elections and his challenger Tabitha Ponder chooses Democrat primary ballots when voting.
Davis owns a civil and criminal law firm where he mainly advises government entities on ethics and compliance issues. He was the executive director of the State Bar from 2014 to 2021 and earned high marks when serving as executive director of the Judicial Qualifications Commission from 2010 to 2014. He was responsible for probing and bringing to court judges accused of ethical misconduct— and several either resigned or were successfully prosecuted for wrongdoing.
Ponder, who has a law degree from Mercer University, is a part-time magistrate judge for Cobb County and runs a mediation practice with Miles Mediation and Arbitration. For most of her career, Ponder has focused on injury law and real estate.
She currently staffs the Georgia Judicial Council’s Access to Justice Committee. “We are the committee that is tasked with ensuring that every Georgia citizen has access to the courts,” she says.
As this is written, both candidates have been struggling with fundraising.
