Democrats across the country have tied their candidacies to abortion, but Georgia voters on Tuesday delivered a resounding rejection of a radical pro-abortion candidate for the state supreme court.
Incumbent Supreme Court Justice Andrew Pinson defeated former Democratic Rep. John Barrow by 10 percentage points on Tuesday in a race for a seat on the state’s highest court. Republican Gov. Brian Kemp appointed Pinson, a former clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, to the court in 2022. Four seats on the bench were up for reelection, though the other three justices were not challenged.
While the race is technically nonpartisan, Barrow entered the race and aimed to make it a referendum on abortion. In 2019, the state passed a law prohibiting most abortions after six weeks. The state Supreme Court rejected one challenge to the law already, though a challenge alleging the law violates the state Constitution is pending in Fulton County Superior Court.
“I’m running for the Supreme Court of Georgia because I believe that women today have the same rights under the state constitution that they used to have under Roe vs. Wade, before it was overturned with the help of my opponent, and that’s why I’m running and that’s why I’m running against him,” Barrow told The Hill.
Barrow’s campaign website also emphasized his desire to allow the killing of unborn babies — or, as he euphemistically put it in a front-and-center banner on the site, to “protect the right of women and their families to make the most personal family and health care decisions they’ll ever make.”
The Georgia Recorder got some voters to praise Barrow’s pro-abortion position. Jeff Evans of Coweta County claimed Republicans have lost “every time” abortion was “on the table,” and told the paper “I hope that happens here.”
But Barrow’s opponent argued the former congressman was “running a hyper-partisan campaign based on promising to defy the judicial oath,” according to The Hill. Pinson argued that Barrow’s outspoken affinity for abortion showed a disregard for the duty of the judiciary and was akin to supporting “a system of partisan politicians in black robes,” according to The New York Times.
In fact, the state’s Judicial Qualifications Commission registered a complaint that Barrow’s commentary about abortion “commits the candidate with respect to issues likely to come before the court that are inconsistent with the impartial performance of the adjudicative duties of judicial office.” The commission sent Barrow a letter rebuking him for flaunting the state’s judicial code of ethics. Barrow challenged the complaint, but a federal judge rejected his claims.
Democrats Hitch Their Wagons to Abortion
Barrow attempted to garner support by making what is supposed to be a nonpartisan race into a referendum on abortion. Voters didn’t bite.
A January poll conducted by Knights of Columbus-Marist revealed 66 percent of Americans support abortion limits and that approximately 6 in 10 support limiting abortions to the first trimester. Contrary to the narrative pushed by Democrats and their corporate media allies, Democrats’ radical, abortion-on-demand-up-to-birth is not popular with most Americans.
Even when Democrats use dishonest messaging and infusions of out-of-state cash to ram pro-abortion ballot measures through, the issue doesn’t give Democrats “the lift they are aiming for,” according to a Politico analysis of five abortion-related ballot initiatives that have appeared since Roe v. Wade was overturned. “Democratic turnout didn’t consistently increase in states with abortion referendums compared to those without,” the outlet concluded.
