Fani Willis and Judge in Georgia Trump Trial Win Primaries

Judge Scott McAfee rebuked District Attorney Fani Willis over her relationship with a subordinate. But he joined her in the primary winner’s circle.

Fulton County district attorney Fani Willis and Superior Court judge Scott McAfee have been on opposite sides of some tense moments in the long run-up to the trial of Donald Trump and his cronies on racketeering charges in Georgia stemming from the 2020 election. Most notably, in March, after an extended hearing with plenty of salacious undertones, McAfee, the trial judge in the Trump case, ruled that Willis’s lead prosecutor, Nathan Wade, had to be dismissed from the case due to the appearance of impropriety created by his past romantic relationship with Willis. He also publicly rebuked Willis for a “tremendous lapse of judgement” in entering into the relationship with a contract employee of her own office, and of “unprofessional conduct” in accusing critics of her handling of the Trump case of racism and sexism. He did not, however, grant a motion to disqualify Willis, a decision that has been appealed by Trump’s lawyers to a higher court.

Thanks to the vagaries of Georgia election laws, McAfee and Willis were both on the Fulton County May 21 primary-election ballot (the judge in a nonpartisan contest, the district attorney in a Democratic primary). Both won overwhelmingly against underfunded opponents in the plurality-Black, heavily Democratic county that includes most of the City of Atlanta. Willis took 87 percent of the vote and McAfee had 83 percent.

This is Willis’s second time facing voters; as an assistant district attorney, she defeated her incumbent boss in 2020 after leading a high-profile racketeering prosecution of public-school teachers for altering test scores.

McAfee was just appointed to the bench in 2023 by Republican governor Brian Kemp, and he is conservative himself (he was his law school’s Federalist Society president). So you have to be impressed by his easy reelection in a potentially hostile jurisdiction, reflecting in turn his deft handling of the potentially explosive Willis-Wade disqualification hearing, which was almost certainly the first time most voters heard a thing about the judge.

It was a banner primary night for incumbents. Normally, statewide judicial races in Georgia are snoozers, but this time former Democratic congressman John Barrow offered a high-profile challenge to Kemp-appointed Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson. Barrow argued that Georgia’s constitution included implied reproductive rights that should invalidate the state’s six-week abortion ban. Georgia’s state bar-association rules governing the conduct of judicial elections are notoriously conservative, and Barrow’s campaign triggered disciplinary proceedings that might have led to his impeachment had he won the nonpartisan election. But Pinson prevailed by a comfortable margin in a rare 2024 setback for abortion rights.

Another embattled incumbent, veteran Atlanta suburban congressman David Scott, a Democrat, won a majority over six challengers, who likely thought they had a shot due to Scott’s age (he’s 79) and health problems. He joins the 190 House incumbents who have won primaries so far this year; only one has lost. Like Willis, Scott will face largely token Republican opposition in November. But he’s much less likely than the Fulton County district attorney to remain in the public spotlight.