ATLANTA (AP) – Republicans traded countercharges about who’s insufficiently conservative or truthful during debates Monday while staking out far-right positions on abortion and gun rights ahead of June 21 runoffs in three Georgia congressional races.
In southwest Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District, frontrunner Jeremy Hunt, who won 37% of the vote in the May 25 primary, fended off charges from second-place finisher Chris West that Hunt was a carpetbagger hand-picked by outsiders to challenge longtime Democratic incumbent Sanford Bishop.
In the 6th Congressional District in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, frontrunner Rich McCormick continued to attack second-place finisher Jake Evans on the grounds that a paper Evans wrote in law school shows he is insufficiently pro-police, while Evans panned McCormick as a moderate in conservative’s clothing because of the Republican Main Street Partnership’s endorsement of McCormick.
In the 10th District, which includes Athens and other areas east of Atlanta, frontrunner Mike Collins criticized Vernon Jones, who finished second in the May 25 primary, for his past as a Democrat in deep-blue DeKalb County. Jones alleged that Collins took federal COVID-19 relief money and then used some of it to make a loan to his campaign.
Both Evans and Jones promoted their endorsements by former President Donald Trump as the second-place finishers sought to close the gap in a short sprint to what could be low-turnout runoff elections. The 6th and 10th districts are heavily Republican and likely to elect GOP nominees.