Today Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson holds his first official rally in Cleveland at Meadows at Mossy Creek. He’ll be talking about unifying the party after a shrill $200 million advertising campaign and primary runoff victory against opponent Lt. Gov. Burt Jones. But Jones isn’t backing Jackson yet. And more about that later.
Democrat gubernatorial candidate Keisha Lance Bottoms is also making the fundraiser rounds, and the former mayor of Atlanta who presided over the costly 2020 riots and destruction is also talking “unity.” Her unity ticket mate is incumbent U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff. However, some in her own party wonder if Ossoff’s defense of what many call her failed leadership in allowing the riots to get out of control could hurt his re-election effort.
After all, Georgia is a swing state where moderate and undecided “swing” voters in the political center could very well control the November general election outcome.
Informed Republicans and Democrats know Bottoms will attack Jackson’s wealth. Never mind that he has a compelling story of working hard as a foster kid to later become a prominent healthcare executive. She is already attacking him for, among other things, flying around to events in in his private jet, and insinuates he will use the governor’s office to further enrich himself.
Republicans note these broadsides seek to distract potential voters from what they term as Bottoms’s disastrous mayoral record as well as her failures when later working in the Biden administration.
That why many Republicans, including the state GOP chairman Josh McKoon, are urging Jackson to specifically pledge not to enrich himself, his family or his healthcare companies.
He also must smoke the peace pipe with Jones.
As this is written, Jackson has not contacted Jones to join his GOP unity bandwagon along with Gov. Brian Kemp. Earlier this week Jones told James Magazine Online and other media outlets that Jackson nor anyone else from his campaign has called him to solicit support— but that he would take the call. A Jackson spokesman said Tuesday that the campaign welcomes Jones’s support but they’re still moving forward united. That’s news to Jones and some of his supporters.
North Georgia pundit and Jackson supporter Brian Pritchard writes, “You cannot simply move past Burt Jones and write off his supporters. He won 80 percent of the vote in his home county of Butts County alone. Burt Jones needs to at least tell his home county to go vote for the Republican nominee. Kemp won this state with a campaign budget of around $10 million in 2018, and Jackson has already dropped over $108 million of his own money.” His point? President Donald Trump only won the state in 2024 by 115,000 votes after heavy spending. So Jackson is going to need every center-right vote he can get in a state that could go either way in November.
