AP Decision Notes: What to expect in Georgia’s primary runoffs

WASHINGTON (AP) — A southwest Georgia Republican who served a brief federal prison sentence for his actions inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, is among those running on Tuesday for a chance to serve in Congress when the state holds primary runoff elections in a handful of U.S. House and state legislative races.

The contests will determine who will challenge two U.S. House members from opposite ends of Georgia’s political spectrum: 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 member of Congress.

Bishop’s Republican general election opponent will be either Chuck Hand, a construction superintendent who pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor charge of illegally demonstrating inside the Capitol Building on Jan. 6, or Wayne Johnson, a former U.S. Department of Education official in the Trump administration. Johnson placed first in the May 21 Republican primary with about 45% of the vote, short of the majority vote needed to avoid Tuesday’s runoff. Hand received 32% of the vote.

The third-place candidate, Michael Nixon, received about 19% of the vote and held a press conference in late May endorsing Johnson, while offering a blistering rebuke against Hand. In response, Hand walked off the stage in the middle of a televised June 9 debate with Johnson, whom he accused of orchestrating the attacks by Nixon. The 2nd District is among 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