The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Congressional candidates go after each other in district runoff debates
GOP candidates fight for title of ‘most conservative.’
In the debates between candidates in the runoffs for two open congressional seats in Georgia, each jockeyed for the title of “most conservative” by attacking the credentials of his opponent.
In the other congressional runoff, the winner of the Republican contest will try to unseat longtime Democratic U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop. So in that contest, the final two GOP candidates didn’t so much focus on their conservatism as much as their electability in the general election.
In all three of Monday’s congressional runoff debates, there were few policy differences among the six candidates. None of the candidates said he would support changes to gun laws that make it harder to purchase or possess firearms.
2nd Congressional District
Jeremy Hunt, a West Point graduate and Yale Law School student, said he would be the best general election opponent against the incumbent in southwest Georgia’s 2nd Congressional District.
“This year we have an opportunity to fight back and defeat Sanford Bishop once and for all,” Hunt said. “I am the only person in this race who can make that a reality. I can build the coalitions it will take to flip this seat.”
But his opponent, attorney and developer Chris West, said he has deeper roots in the region than Hunt, making him a stronger advocate for its residents.
“What we need to defeat Sanford Bishop is a fighter,” West said. “Someone who is going to go up and represent middle and southwest Georgia, not someone who has just moved here three months ago, who has been bought and paid for by Washington, D.C., special interests.”
6th Congressional District
In the 6th Congressional District debate, attorney Jake Evans said he opposed abortions except those deemed medically necessary to save the life of the mother. His opponent, emergency room physician Rich Mccormick, said he did not support abortions under any circumstances.
However, the most contentious exchanges between the two candidates came when they questioned one another’s conservative credentials.
Evans claimed Mccormick’s list of endorsements is riddled with moderates, and he criticized donations Mccormick received from health care organizations such as the American Medical Association, which Evans described as liberal.
“The fact of the matter is, Rich Mccormick is an establishment RINO,” Evans said, invoking an acronym used to describe members of the Republican Party who critics say don’t truly ascribe to the party’s values.
Mccormick said the attacks from Evans are just his opponent’s attempts to distract from the real controversy: an essay Evans published in a 2015 law review, which Evans said originated as a law school assignment in 2012. Mccormick describes it as a “manifesto” that illuminates Evans’ true political leanings.
In the essay, Evans discusses shifting public funding from criminal justice to education and defines institutional racism. It shows Evans’ true political views and runs counter to his current campaign for what is now a conservative-leaning seat, Mccormick said.
“We are sick of fake politicians who do or say anything to be elected,” Mccormick said during the debate. “Fake politicians like Jake Evans.”
10th Congressional District
Similar attacks also surfaced during the debate between 10th Congressional District runoff candidates Mike Collins, who owns a trucking business, and former state Rep. Vernon Jones.
Although Jones was a Democrat until 2020 when he became a prominent supporter of President Donald Trump, he spent several minutes attacking Collins’ father for starting his political career as a Democrat. Jones also accused Collins of trying to attract Democratic voters to the 2014 runoff when he was on the ballot against Jody Hice, but Collins said that is not what occurred.
“He is the great pretender,” Jones said. “He pretends to be this, but he’s really that. Mike is a RINO.”
Collins pointed out Jones’ yearslong political career as a Democrat and said he has tried to pivot on issues such as abortion now that he is running as a Republican in a conservative district.
”What you have to do,” Collins said, “is look and see who do you trust on important issues such as life.”
In an emotional prime-time address last week, President Joe Biden implored Congress to “do something” to curb gun violence. This week, the House will vote on a package of gun control measures while, in the Senate, a bipartisan group of lawmakers has been working to find common ground.
The sudden focus on gun control following a massacre at a Texas elementary school is throwing an unexpected snag into Georgia’s U.S. Senate campaign. Democratic incumbent Raphael Warnock is a co-sponsor of a new proposal in the Senate seeking a ban on semiautomatic weapons, such as AR-15 rifles, but he hasn’t been advertising that fact. Republican Herschel Walker has struggled to articulate any position at all in the wake of the shooting that killed 19 children.
It’s a sign of how tricky the issue is in Georgia, a state that has traditionally embraced strong support for gun rights but where political winds are shifting as the state has shifted more Democratic.
In January, nearly 7 in 10 Georgia voters who took part in an Atlanta Journal-constitution poll said they did not believe adults in Georgia should be allowed to carry concealed handguns in public without first getting a license. But the Republican-led state Legislature passed a bill that did just that, and Gov. Brian Kemp promptly signed it into law.
University of Georgia political science professor Charles Bullock said that poll — in which more than 50% of Republican respondents said they opposed eliminating the license requirement for handguns — challenges the long-held view that the Georgia GOP is united in its support of gun rights.
“The state may be in the process of changing,” Bullock said. “That could be especially true when every week, sometimes every day, you have an example of a new deadly shooting.”
Courtney Spriggs, Georgia chapter leader for Moms Demand Action, said that most Georgians she has encountered back reasonable gun control measures in a face-to-face conversation.
“Unfortunately, the loudest voices are often the ones that get heard,” Spriggs said.
Rick Dent, a veteran Democratic political strategist, cautioned that the gun issue has the potential to be more dangerous to Democrats than Republicans because Democrats have a tendency to overreach. In Georgia and throughout the South, he said, guns are embedded in the culture in a way that can make gun control thorny.
“If, in November, Democrats are seen as the party of take away your guns and Joe Biden, they will lose,” Dent said.
In his speech last week, Biden urged lawmakers to strengthen background checks for gun buyers and enact a national “red flag” law that would allow a judge to temporarily confiscate weapons from someone determined to be a threat. He also urged lawmakers to consider a ban on semiautomatic weapons or raising the age for purchase of those weapons from 18 to 21.
Warnock has won kudos in gun control circles for being one of just two Democratic senators facing tough reelection battles to sign on to a bill that would ban semiautomatic weapons, sponsored by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-calif. A campaign spokeswoman said Warnock also supports additional background checks and red flag laws.
But in the days since the shooting Warnock’s team hasn’t used social media or a press release to tout that support. Instead, he’s stayed focused on kitchen table economic issues such as capping insulin prices and creating jobs.
Walker, meanwhile, has been excoriated for twice offering incomprehensible answers when asked about gun control.
“What about looking at getting a department that can look at young men that’s looking at women that’s looking at their social media?” Walker said in an appearance on Fox News.
Asked by the AJC whether Walker would back a semiautomatic weapons ban, extended background checks or red flag laws, the Walker camp declined to answer.
In a statement provided by his campaign, Walker said the problem involved mental health and school security. “The solution to this problem is not more laws taking away our Second Amendment rights or preventing Americans from defending themselves and their families,” the campaign statement said. “(A)s a country we need to get serious about developing better and more effective mental health programs.”
Senators on Capitol Hill who are working on a gun control compromise have said they are optimistic, but past attempts to reach a deal have failed, even after other lethal mass shootings.
Bullock said it’s likely neither candidate wants to dwell on the issue. Focus-group-tested messages on economic issues and inflation are safer ground for them.
Still, Spriggs said her group would work to keep the issue in the spotlight.
“Mass shootings get the most attention, but they are not what is most dangerous,” she said, noting that domestic incidents, suicides and other violent incidents kill more people.
“I don’t think moms who have children are going to let this go anytime soon,” she said.
But Dent said history has shown that may not be the case,
“The intensity of the gun issue evaporates fast,” he said.