Georgians handed Democrats a decisive defeat on Tuesday by reelecting two Republican-backed candidates in a pair of highly contested state Supreme Court races.
In one race, incumbent Justice Charles Bethel is projected to defeat leftist Miracle Rankin. Unofficial results show the former beating the latter by 2.2 points, with more than 95 percent of votes tabulated as of publication, according to The New York Times.
Meanwhile, incumbent Justice Sarah Hawkins Warren is projected to defeat left-wing candidate Jen Jordan in a massive landslide. Per the Times, preliminary results show Warren beating Jordan by a whopping 18.6 points, with more than 95 percent of votes counted as of publication.
Both Bethel and Warren were initially appointed to their positions by former GOP Gov. Nathan Deal and received backing from current Gov. Brian Kemp and Republicans. Meanwhile, Rankin and Jordan were supported by former President Obama, Democrats, and other pro-abortion forces.
Incumbent Justice Ben Land, a Kemp appointee, easily won his election after running unopposed.
As The Federalist previously reported, Rankin and Jordan are pro-abortion activists who have signaled their intent to act as left-wing partisans on the Georgia Supreme Court. The Peach State’s highest court has been asked to weigh in on numerous high-profile matters in recent years, including cases that deal with abortion, election integrity, and Democrat lawfare.
Tuesday’s elections came a day after a federal appellate court unsealed damning findings Rankin and Jordan discovered by the Georgia Judicial Qualifications Commission (JQC), which probes alleged acts of judicial misconduct. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, the JQC committee “said it ‘reasonably believes’” the two leftist candidates “violated the judicial code by publicly endorsing one another and promising to restore abortion rights” if elected.
Rankin and Jordan fought in court to prevent the JQC’s findings from being released to the public ahead of Tuesday’s elections. While a district court judge — who happened to be the sister of failed Democrat gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams — issued an order preventing the assessment’s release, the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals intervened and authorized its publication on Monday.
The results of Tuesday’s races guarantee that the Georgia Supreme Court will remain in conservative hands through 2028. As Bolts magazine observed prior to the elections, “Three more Georgia justices come up for election in 2028, meaning that a victory from this year’s challengers” would have set the stage for “a longshot path for a liberal majority on the court ahead of that year’s presidential election.”
That path is no longer viable following Tuesday’s results.
Shawn Fleetwood is a staff writer for The Federalist and a graduate of the University of Mary Washington. He is a co-recipient of the 2025 Dao Prize for Excellence in Investigative Journalism. His work has been featured in numerous outlets, including RealClearPolitics and RealClearHealth. Follow him on Twitter @ShawnFleetwood
