MACON, Ga. — We're a little over two months out from the Republican Primary and five GOP candidates are vying for Georgia's Congressional District 2.
They’re running against incumbent Representative Sanford Bishop, a longtime Democrat.
The Republicans include Wayne Johnson, Vivian Childs, Jeremy Hunt, Chris West and Richard Robertson.
On Saturday, the Republican candidates debated top issues from taxes and education to what the U.S. should do with the crisis in Ukraine.
Another topic they discussed was the military's budget.
After redistricting this year, Robins Air Force Base will move out of District 8, currently represented by Austin Scott, and into Representative Bishop's District 2.
So, of course, the military is a top talking point for these candidates.
"Warner Robins is in peril. Shortly, we won't have a single flying unit based in Warner Robins. JSTARS being wound down, it's being replaced with something called Battlefield Management, which translates that Sanford Bishop sitting on the Base Caucus Committee allowed for us to lose people — the machinists and workers that turn bolts and those kinds of things. Several thousands of people will go away," Johnson said.
"I want the biggest, baddest machines available for our government. I want everyone to fear it coming or even anticipate it coming. That is what we need when it comes to the military. We need the funding to make it happen," Childs said.
"The biggest issue we're actually dealing with is recruitment. Right now, we don't have enough soldiers to fill the ranks for the next generation and that is a serious problem. If we lose that, that that pride of patriotism in the next generation, we will be in a very dangerous place," Hunt said.
"You can't just stand up a military overnight. The infrastructure that we have with our bases, it takes years to build something like that hundreds of billions of dollars. So, it is absolutely a worthwhile endeavor to keep to spend our precious resources on our bases," West said.
"I am concerned about all these military that were forced out of the military because they refused to take a vaccine that isn't really a vaccine. In the NDAA, we need to make sure that all those people that got kicked out for that they come back in. I will fight for that. I am not for taxpayer dollars being spent on gender transitional surgeries, which is currently happening. I want to stop that," Robertson said.
The primaries are May 24.
Two Democrats are running in their primary, Representative Bishop and Joseph O'Hara.
The deadline to register is April 25.
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