Georgia Election Results – Roy Barnes wins

Former Georgia governor Roy Barnes(D) won his party’s nomination for governor Tuesday, while former secretary of state Karen Handel and former congressman Nathan Deal qualified for an Aug. 10 runoff on the GOP side.

Barnes defeated state Attorney General Thurbert Baker and five other Democrats in his race, getting nearly two-thirds of the vote. The Democratic Governors Association aims to be competitive for a seat now held by a Republican, Sonny Perdue, and Democrats are hopeful that Barnes’s decisive win, while Republicans are still settling on a candidate, will give him a leg up in November.