A former Trump administration official has won the GOP runoff in Georgia’s 2nd congressional district in southwest Georgia.
Wayne Johnson, a Macon Republican, was declared the winner by the Associated Press shortly after the polls closed Tuesday.
Johnson beat Chuck Hand, a construction superintendent who was one of a handful of convicted Jan. 6 rioters running for Congress. The other candidates criticized Hand for making his Jan. 6 conviction part of his campaign pitch.
Johnson, who was a senior official for the U.S. Department of Education under former President Donald Trump, will face longtime Congressman Sanford Bishop in November in the Democratic leaning district.
The race had been a low-key affair until Hand drew national attention for abruptly walking out of an Atlanta Press Club debate earlier this month just minutes after it started.
In 2022, the National Republican Congressional Committee targeted Bishop’s seat as one it would attempt to flip that year. But in the end, Bishop handily won reelection by nearly 10 percentage points. The seat is not on the NRCC’s list of targets for this year.
The post Former Trump administration official to head GOP ticket in November contest against Bishop appeared first on Georgia Recorder.
Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.

Jill Nolin | Georgia Recorder
Jill Nolin has spent nearly 15 years reporting on state and local government in four states, focusing on policy and political stories and tracking public spending. She has spent the last five years chasing stories in the halls of Georgia’s Gold Dome, earning recognition for her work showing the impact of rising opioid addiction on the state’s rural communities. She is a graduate of Troy University.