Judge Scott McAfee of Fulton County Superior Court will serve another four-year term on the bench, defeating challenger Robert Patillo in Tuesday’s primary election.
McAfee is currently presiding over former President Donald Trump’s election interference case. The former president and 18 original co-conspirators (14 now) are accused of attempting to overturn the state’s election results to give Trump an electoral victory. The defendants, all of whom have pleaded not guilty, face charges including violating Georgia’s Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations (RICO) Act.
On Tuesday, McAfee quickly won his election, with the Associated Press calling the election within an hour of the polls closing.
The 34-year-old judge, the youngest on the circuit, campaigned on clearing the COVID case backlog, providing “a path forward” for nonviolent offenders, and holding violent offenders accountable.
Patillo, a defense attorney and community advocate who has practiced in Fulton County for more than 15 years, ran on a platform of “bringing competency, compassion and change” to the Fulton County Superior Court.
Tiffani Johnson, a civil and criminal attorney, was originally on the ballot but later disqualified due to failing to prove her eligibility based on residency.
Patillo told Newsweek via email on Tuesday morning, prior to votes being finalized, that “this election will be a referendum on whether or not voters are satisfied with the status quo.”
“After three months on the campaign trail, knocking on over 30,000 doors, putting out hundreds of yard signs and handing out tens of thousands of walk cards, it is clear that voters want change,” he said. “I am confident that we will win tonight because the voters of this county are ready for the leadership that they deserve.”
Newsweek reached out to McAfee and Johnson via email on Tuesday morning.
As of Tuesday morning, the Georgia Secretary of State’s office reported that 514,724 ballots had been accepted statewide for early in-person voting, including just over 53,000 in Fulton County.
On May 17, the final day of in-person voting, 94,166 ballots were cast across the state.
McAfee, a Republican who, along with Patillo, was listed as a nonpartisan candidate on Tuesday’s ballot, was appointed by Republican Governor Brian Kemp and sworn into his current position on February 1, 2023.
McAfee previously served as a state and federal prosecutor, including stints in the Fulton County District Attorney’s Office and in the Northern District of Georgia, the latter where he investigated and prosecuted major drug trafficking organizations and fraud conspiracies. He later served as Georgia’s inspector general.
McAfee made headlines earlier this year when ruling whether Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who convened the grand jury that ultimately indicted Trump and company in August 2023, acted inappropriately by appointing a romantic interest, Nathan Wade, to head the prosecution.
Willis, who McAfee said created an “appearance of impropriety,” was allowed to stay on the Trump case so long as Wade was removed.
The Georgia Court of Appeals, which has agreed to review McAfee’s ruling as it pertains to Willis, could still remove the district attorney from the case.
McAfee raised more than $327,000 as part of his campaign. Patillo raised about $11,800, lagging behind the approximate $17,000 raised by the disqualified Johnson, according to The New York Times.
Prior to McAfee, Chief Judge Christopher Brasher retired from Fulton County Superior Court after 16 years on the bench. He ran unopposed in the 2010 and 2014 races.
In the 2018 general election, he received 90,767 votes (99.5 percent) while write-ins received the rest.
Early voting in the 2018 general election totaled about 1.8 million, a record that was broken four years later when more than 2.28 million cast ballots in 2022.