The cheers and whistling from the crowd greeted Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis as her black SUV crawled along the Edgewood Avenue parade route last weekend.
“Keep it up!” one spectator yelled.
“Put him in jail, Fani,” shouted another.
“You’re doing great,” a third bellowed.
Standing up through the Chevy Tahoe’s open sunroof, Willis beamed and waved a campaign sign as her well-guarded mini-motorcade made its way through the Inman Park Festival Parade.
The celebrity-like reception from the left-leaning intown crowd made it feel almost unfathomable that Willis just six weeks earlier had been in the political fight of her life.
Nine teams of defense attorneys had tried, unsuccessfully, to remove her from the election interference case against former President Donald Trump and 14 of his allies due to her onetime romantic relationship with her lead prosecutor. Aside from one spectator who booed as the DA passed by, the disqualification saga felt like a distant memory.
Willis has become a national figure for her sprawling racketeering case against Trump. But as she runs for a second term, the veteran prosecutor is far more likely to talk about her office’s anti-recidivism efforts and a youth mentorship program than she is the former president.
The Democrat is toeing a delicate line as she seeks to win back the politically and demographically diverse coalition that powered her decisive victory four years ago — including many moderates and right-leaning voters. Willis is emphasizing how she won’t hesitate to punish the people who commit violent crimes, while also championing some of the criminal justice reform proposals the liberal wing of her party has championed in recent years.
“My office aggressively prosecutes the most dangerous criminals, including gang leaders and sexual predators. We are all safer,” Willis states in one recent radio ad. “But that’s only part of the job.”
Pole position
Willis is entering the race as the overwhelming favorite. She has the benefits of incumbency, a national platform and a deep donor base. (She had raised roughly $326,000 as of late January, the latest fundraising figures available.) And Willis has notably avoided the level of organized backlash that some of her counterparts in cities like San Francisco, Philadelphia and Minneapolis have received for their more progressive approaches to prosecuting crimes.
But unlike in 2020, when Willis was viewed as a politically moderate insurgent challenging her former boss, she now has a record on which her opponents, Democrat Christian Wise Smith and Republican Courtney Kramer, can try and capitalize.
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
Credit: Elijah Nouvelage
She has angered many on the right for her case against Trump and other GOP figures, which they see as politically motivated and a waste of taxpayer resources. Willis has generated pushback for her office’s use of rap lyrics as evidence in its Young Slime Life gang case, as well as her fondness for large racketeering cases, which some critics say have been pursued at the expense of other day-to-day priorities.
And then there’s the disqualification fight, which generated months of salacious headlines about the DA’s personal life. While it may be out of mind for some of the DA’s supporters, it is very much a part of the GOP narrative against her, on the campaign trail, in the Legislature and in court, where Trump and others have appealed a recent ruling that allowed her to stay on the case.
“She’s made a mockery of politics, and she’s made it into a clown show,” said Kramer. “I think she’s using her office for political reasons, and that’s not what the office of district attorney is meant to do.”
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Credit: Natrice Miller/AJC
Polling has been limited ahead of the May 21 primary, but one recent public survey showed Willis with just shy of 80% of the vote against Wise Smith. The winner of the Democratic nomination will take on Kramer in November.
Democratic strategist Tharon Johnson said Willis is in good position to win in both the primary and general elections “because she has extremely high name recognition and a well-funded campaign.”
Johnson, who is unaffiliated with the race, said it appears that staunch Democrats who tend to turn out in primaries are willing to overlook the disqualification fight and rally around Willis so she can “continue this (election) case and let the facts fall where they may.”
Wise Smith focuses on rehabilitation
Willis is facing off for the second time against Wise Smith, a defense attorney and former solicitor who briefly worked in the Fulton DA’s office.
Four years ago, Wise Smith garnered about 23% of the vote in the Democratic primary on a progressive platform that included eliminating cash bail, decriminalizing drug possession and not seeking the death penalty.
This year, Wise Smith is again running to the left of Willis. He promises to focus his prosecutorial firepower on crimes with victims, particularly violent crimes, while aiming to address other kinds of cases — including those involving drug possession, the homeless or people struggling with mental health — with community organizations that could help divert people from prisons.
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
Credit: Jason Getz / Jason.Getz@ajc.com
“If we start giving people the opportunity to create opportunities for themselves, that lessens the load on us in the criminal justice system,” Wise Smith said in a recent interview. “Somebody who’s busy working to provide for themselves and their family, they’re not going to be busy trying to rob you.”
Soft spoken and barrel chested, with tattoos he hides under long sleeved button downs, Wise Smith often discusses his brushes with the criminal justice system growing up in Cincinnati, including watching his grandmother get strip-searched and being kicked out of school at 17 before a conversation with a police officer prompted him to change his life. He says his experience in the DA’s office showed him how prosecutors are often too focused on conviction rates.
Wise Smith has notably received support from some hip hop heavyweights angry about Willis’ use of song lyrics in the YSL case. New York music executive Kevin Liles, whose record label represents Young Thug, the rapper at the center of the case, recently held a fundraiser for him.
It’s unclear how much traction Wise Smith has received. His first fundraising report had yet to be posted on the Georgia’s Campaign Finance Commission website as of publication, and he logged only 9% support in one recent survey of Democratic primary voters.
Wise Smith has generally shied away from discussing the specifics of the election interference probe, though he’s been critical of the more than $728,000 Willis paid Nathan Wade, her ex-boyfriend and former lead prosecutor on the case. But he’s also pledged to continue prosecuting the Trump case if he’s elected.
Credit: NYT
Credit: NYT
Willis’ balancing act
When she ran four years ago, Willis focused on the ethics scandals that had engulfed incumbent Paul Howard. This time, she’s touting community outreach efforts she’s launched, including what she says is Fulton’s first pre-indictment diversion program for non-violent offenders, job training initiatives and an in-school youth mentoring and coaching program for at-risk students. Willis has also promoted declining murder and violent crime numbers.
“I am a violent criminal’s worst nightmare,” Willis said during a recent Democratic Party fundraising gala. “At the same time, we work tirelessly to save young people, first time offenders and those who are suffering from mental illness and addiction from being caught up in the criminal justice system. This balanced approach is working.”
Volkan Topalli, a professor of criminal justice and criminology at Georgia State University, says homicides and crime rates are indeed down over the last year, especially compared to the levels logged during the height of the pandemic. But he says it’s hard to tease out exactly which policies are responsible for the decline, especially in light of broader national dynamics that affect crime rates, including COVID, the unemployment rate and inflation.
“It’s not that she can’t take credit for it, but she can’t identify for sure how much credit she should be taking,” Topalli said of Willis.
While Willis is less likely to directly bring up the election case in her campaign messaging, she’s fiercely defended her reputation in the wake of the disqualification fight — in one recent address, she called herself “the best DA this county’s ever had.” And she hasn’t hesitated to hit back against her critics.
Credit: TNS
Credit: TNS
That swagger is what some of Willis’ most die-hard supporters admire about her.
“For me she’s like a bulldog politician,” said Claudius, who cheered for Willis at the Inman Park Festival as her SUV passed by but declined to give his last name. “Whatever case she’s working on, it’s like she’s on top of the case.”
Janice Hall, a Willis supporter from Buckhead, said the removal fight didn’t dampen her support for the DA.
“I know she’s gotten a lot of pushback but I think a lot of that was very undeserved,” Hall said. “I think she’s doing a good job. I’m proud of her.”
In recent weeks, the DA has received criticism for keeping the media and her challengers at arm’s length, which has become an increasingly common strategy for incumbents with large leads. Most of her campaign events have been tightly-controlled affairs, and Willis’ team declined to make the DA available for an interview for this story.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Willis’ aides often discuss the unique security concerns surrounding Willis, who has faced death threats in the wake of her election and YSL cases. And when Willis recently skipped a televised debate with Wise Smith, her team cited the possibility that her comments could be used against her by defense attorneys in court.
Indeed, attorneys for Trump and other defendants, as they sought to remove Willis and her team from the elections case, compiled nearly every interview the DA conducted over the course of the investigation to argue she had committed “forensic misconduct.” Fulton Superior Court Judge Scott McAfee ultimately concluded that Willis’ past comments did not rise to that level, but he did raise the prospect of a gag order against Willis to prevent “prejudicial pretrial publicity.”
While McAfee gave Willis a win by letting her stay on the election case — on the condition that Wade resigned, which he did just hours later — she isn’t out of the woods yet. Defense attorneys have appealed McAfee’s ruling to the Georgia Court of Appeals. The court is expected to announce in the next week whether it will take up the matter.
If the appeals court chooses to do so, arguments are not expected to be scheduled until well after the primary.
About the Author
