WASHINGTON (AP) — A southwest Georgia Republican who served a brief sentence in a federal prison for his actions at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is among those running for a seat in Congress on Tuesday when the state holds runoff elections for some seats in the U.S. House of Representatives and state legislature.
The election will decide who will challenge two U.S. House members from opposite ends of the political spectrum in Georgia: 16-term Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop and two-term Republican Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene. The Republican race in Bishop’s 2nd Congressional District is the latest example of someone convicted of a crime on Jan. 6 seeking to return to the Capitol as a congressman.
Bishop’s Republican opponent in the general election will be either Chuck Hand, a construction manager who pleaded guilty to illegally demonstrating at the Capitol on Jan. 6, or Wayne Johnson, a former U.S. Department of Education official in the Trump administration. Johnson finished first in the May 21 Republican primary with about 45% of the vote, falling tiny of the majority needed to avoid Tuesday’s runoff. Hand received 32% of the vote.
Third-place candidate Michael Nixon received about 19% of the vote and held a press conference in tardy May endorsing Johnson and sharply criticizing Hand. In response, Hand walked off the stage in the middle of a televised debate on June 9 with Johnson, whom he accused of orchestrating Nixon’s attacks. The 2nd District is one of the state’s Democratic enclaves. Voters there supported Hillary Clinton and Joe Biden in the last two presidential elections with about 54% and 55% of the vote, respectively. Sanford won his 2022 re-election bid with 55% of the vote.
In the 3rd Congressional District, former state Senate Majority Leader Mike Dugan and former White House political director Brian Jack are running to replace outgoing Republican U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson. Jack is backed by his former boss Donald Trump and was the top vote-getter in the May 21 primary with about 47% of the vote. Dugan received about 25% of the vote, with the remaining votes split among three candidates. The winner will face Democrat Maura Keller, an Army veteran. Ferguson won the seat in 2022 with about 69% of the vote.
The Democrats vying to replace Greene in the 14th Congressional District are Clarence Blalock, a former city of Smyrna employee and 2021 Atlanta City Council candidate, and Shawn Harris, a retired Army brigadier general and rancher. Blalock defeated Harris in the primary by just 128 votes out of more than 18,000 cast. Greene won re-election in 2022 with about 66% of the vote.
Candidates in four Senate and four House districts also face runoffs. The only incumbent on Tuesday’s ballot is Republican Rep. Steven Sainz in House District 180. Sainz received 49.7% of the vote in the primary, narrowly missing a runoff. His opponent is Glenn Cook, a Navy veteran and pilot.
All 56 seats in the Senate and 180 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election in November. The Republicans have comfortable majorities in both chambers.
Runoff elections in Georgia have previously been held nine weeks after primaries, but a comprehensive 2021 election law shortened that period to four weeks.
Here’s a look at what to expect on Tuesday:
DAY OF PRIMARY CRASH
The Georgia primary runoff elections will take place on Tuesday, with polls closing at 7 p.m. ET.
WHAT IS ON THE BALLOT
The Associated Press will report voting results and announce the winners of 11 runoff elections: three contested primaries for the U.S. House of Representatives and four each for the state Senate and House of Representatives.
WHO CAN VOTE
Registered voters can participate in their district’s partisan runoff if: they voted in the same party’s primary on May 21, they voted only in the nonpartisan primary, or they did not vote in the primary. In other words, voters in the Republican primary cannot vote in a Democratic runoff, and vice versa.
DECISION NOTES
Runoff elections are typically lower-turnout events than the original elections that sparked them. This could sluggish the ballot counting process for a contested election, especially in smaller state districts. In these cases, determining the outcome could depend on a compact handful of ballots that have not yet been counted.
Voter turnout in the primaries and runoffs of the out-of-power parties in sheltered Democratic or Republican districts also tends to be low. This could mean that the winner in the primaries for the 2nd and 14th Congressional Districts could also depend on relatively few votes.
In the Republican runoff in the 3rd Congressional District, Jack nearly won the nomination in the May 21 primary, and his endorsement from Trump should support him win over some residents of the district who did not vote for him or Dugan. Trump won this district with 66% of the vote in 2016 and 64% in 2020.
In the May 21 primary, Jack won 14 of the district’s 15 counties, nine of them with an outright majority. To win the runoff, Dugan would need to significantly surpass the 52% he received in his home county of Carroll to offset Jack’s lead in other counties.
The AP does not make predictions and will only declare a winner if it determines that there is no scenario in which the trailing candidates could close the gap. If a race has not yet been called, the AP will continue to report on any major developments, such as candidate concessions or declarations of victory, while making clear that it has not yet declared a winner and explaining why.
There is no automatic recount in Georgia, but a losing candidate can request a recount if the margin is less than or equal to 0.5% of the total vote. The AP can declare a winner in a race eligible for a recount if it determines that the margin is too huge for a recount or legal challenge to change the outcome.
WHAT ABOUT VOTER TURNOUT AND PRE-SELECTION?
As of June 7, there were just over 8 million registered voters in Georgia. Voters in Georgia do not register by party.
Around 1.3 million voters took part in the primary elections on May 21, which is about 16 percent of all registered voters. About 44 percent of the votes were cast before primary day.
As of Thursday, a total of 3,012 votes had been cast in the 2nd Congressional District Republican primary, 8,375 in the 3rd Congressional District Republican primary, and 2,213 in the 14th Congressional District Democratic primary. A total of 4,658 votes had been cast before Election Day in the three Democratic State Senate runoffs, and 331 in the 7th District Republican State Senate runoff. In the State House runoffs, 553 votes had been cast before Election Day in the two Democratic runoffs, most of them in the 145th Congressional District, and 1,779 votes had been cast in the two Republican runoffs, most of them in the 180th Congressional District.
HOW LONG DOES THE COUNTING OF VOTES USUALLY TAKE?
In the May 21 primary, AP first reported results at 7:02 p.m. ET, two minutes after polls closed. Vote counting ended at 3:13 a.m. ET on election night, after about 99 percent of all votes had been counted.
ARE WE ALREADY THERE?
As of Tuesday, there are 140 days left until the parliamentary elections in November.
___
Follow AP’s coverage of the 2024 election at https://apnews.com/hub/election-2024.
