Justice Andrew Pinson defeated Democratic former Rep. John Barrow on Tuesday, NBC News projects, in a Georgia Supreme Court race that Barrow tried to center on abortion rights.
With 63% of the vote in, Pinson was ahead 56% to 44%.
Pinson, 37, whom GOP Gov. Brian Kemp appointed to the high court in 2022, will now serve a six-year term.
Barrow, 69, who served in Congress from 2005 to 2015, was trying to become the first candidate to unseat a state Supreme Court justice since 1922, according to The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Georgia’s Supreme Court is technically nonpartisan, and candidates don’t run on party tickets. But Barrow tried to capitalize on the political momentum favoring Democrats and liberal candidates in the nearly two years since the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade by focusing his bid on reproductive rights. He said he interpreted the state’s constitution to grant the right to have an abortion, while Pinson argued that he and Barrow shouldn’t address the broader topic because it’s a partisan issue.
Georgia enacted a so-called heartbeat bill in 2019 that bans most abortions after fetal heartbeats are detected, which can be around six weeks, or before many women even know they are pregnant. The bill snapped into effect after Roe was overturned in 2022.
Barrow had accused Pinson, then Georgia’s solicitor general, of supporting the case that led to Roe’s being struck down.
The Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission, a state agency that investigates potential misconduct by judges and candidates to be judges in Georgia, alleged that Barrow had violated ethics rules by discussing abortion rights as part of his campaign. Judicial ethics rules in the state ban candidates from saying or suggesting how they’d vote on issues that could come before the court. Barrow sued to have the complaint thrown out, but last week a federal judge dismissed the suit.
Meanwhile, Kemp’s political action committee poured $500,000 into the race to boost Pinson, after it became apparent that the race had grown competitive.
Pinson’s victory means eight of the nine justices on the court will continue to have been appointed by Republican governors. Three other justices on the court who were up for fresh six-year terms Tuesday ran unopposed.
