Sanford Bishop

Biography & Campaign Analysis

Background

Sanford Bishop was born Sanford Dixon Bishop Jr. on February 4, 1947, in Mobile, Alabama, to Minnie B. Slade and Sanford Dixon Bishop, the first president of Bishop State Community College.

He earned a Bachelor of Arts from Morehouse College in 1968, majoring in political science, and a Juris Doctor from the Emory University School of Law in 1971. He served in the United States Army from 1969 to 1971 and later operated a law firm in Columbus, Georgia.

He is married to Vivian Creighton, who served as municipal clerk of Columbus from 1993 to 2021.

Career

Bishop was elected to the Georgia House of Representatives in 1977 and to the Georgia State Senate in 1990. After one term in the state senate, he ran for the 2nd congressional district in 1992, defeating six-term incumbent Charles Hatcher in a Democratic primary runoff and Republican Jim Dudley in the general election. He has won every election since, most narrowly in 2010, when he defeated Mike Keown 51% to 49%, and in 2024 he won a seventeenth term with 56.3% of the vote.

Bishop became the dean of Georgia's congressional delegation after the death of John Lewis. He is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition and the Congressional Black Caucus, and in the 119th Congress he serves on the Appropriations Committee as ranking member of the Subcommittee on Agriculture, Rural Development, Food and Drug Administration, and Related Agencies.

2026 race

Bishop is the Democratic incumbent in Georgia's 2nd congressional district, which encompasses the southwest corner of the state, including most of Columbus. He was unopposed in the 2026 Democratic primary, receiving 72,498 votes. His Republican opponent is Matt Day, a businessman who was also unopposed in his party's primary. The general election takes place on November 3, 2026.