WARNER ROBINS, Ga. — Incumbent Houston District Attorney George Hartwig has won another term after facing a challenge by his Chief Assistant District Attorney, Erikka Williams.
Elections officials in Houston County spent most of Wednesday counting around 20,000 absentee ballots to officially come to that conclusion.
In the end, Hartwig received 38,007 votes or 51.93% to Williams’ 35,176 (48.07%).
Hartwig worked as a Florida police officer in the 1970s and 80s, before moving to Macon to attend Mercer's law school.
After joining the Houston County District Attorney's office as an assistant DA in 2001, he ran for the top job in 2010 and has been there since.
Hartwig said he chose to run for re-election this year because he felt like he’s done a good job keeping the people of Houston County safe, particularly with prosecuting the most violent offenders.
In a candidate profile with 13WMAZ, he highlighted three things as being the county and/or his office’s largest problems: crime, the budget, and a case backlog.
"The budgets are tight. They want us to do more with less. There's a budgetary crisis in this state several months ago, in large part, because of COVID," he said. "I've been on the front lines of dealing with that, those budgetary issues on the state level.”
Both he and Williams brought up the office’s case backlog on the campaign trial – several thousand pending cases – but he said i’s not new to their office because of the number of judges in the county, which is decided by the state.
Another point that came up throughout Hartwig’s campaign was his relationship with his office manager. Williams said it caused problems within the district attorney’s office.
Hartwig defended his work relationship with the office manager and described her as “diligent, dedicated [and] helpful.”
He concluded the candidate profile by making a final pitch to voters in Houston County saying, “I've been here, I've worked hard, I've done a good job and I want the chance to continue serving."
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