As a rule, it’s not great when congressional candidates agree to participate in a televised debate, and then walk out of the event midway through the broadcast. Nevertheless, it was just last week when Chuck Hand, a Republican candidate in Georgia, decided he didn’t like the line of questioning during a primary debate, and exited the stage.
The move, not surprisingly, generated headlines, but it wasn’t the only thing about Hand that was notable: He’s also one of the candidates running for Congress this year after having been convicted of Jan. 6 crimes. In fact, Hand was sentenced to 20 days in federal prison after being found guilty of illegally demonstrating inside the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.
The Georgian tried to parlay that experience into a bid for elected office. As NBC News reported, that didn’t work.
Charles Hand III, or Chuck Hand, was defeated by former Trump administration official Wayne Johnson as they vied to face Democratic Rep. Sanford Bishop in the general election in the solidly blue district. The two candidates advanced to a runoff after neither won a majority of the vote in the initial May primary.
With just about all of the votes tallied, the runoff primary was not close: It appears Johnson defeated Hand by nearly a two-to-one margin.
If it makes him feel any better, Hand has a fair amount of company. It was, after all, just last month when another Jan. 6 convict, Derrick Evans, also lost badly in a congressional primary in West Virginia.
What’s more, some Jan. 6 participants were on the ballot in Virginia last year, and they lost. A year earlier, HuffPost reported, “Many Republican candidates who were directly linked to the deadly Jan. 6, 2021, riot at the U.S. Capitol lost their bids for office in Tuesday’s midterm elections, in a big repudiation of extremism and GOP efforts to torpedo democracy.” To be sure, there are some related exceptions. Wisconsin’s Derrick Van Orden, a Trump loyalist who rallied outside the Capitol on Jan. 6, was elected as a Republican congressman in 2022. What’s more, there are some other Jan. 6 candidates on the ballot this year, and they might yet prevail. But broadly speaking, those who’ve tried to parlay their Jan. 6 experiences into successful campaigns have failed. GOP primary voters in Georgia extended that losing streak yesterday. This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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