Rick Jackson stood on a stage in Buford in August, next to Gov. Brian Kemp, and told the crowd: “I never met my father. My mother was a waitress who battled alcoholism.” A billionaire who says he grew up in Georgia’s foster care system is now asking voters to make him governor. His opponent is the former mayor of Atlanta. Election Day is Nov. 3.
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Jackson are competing to replace Kemp, who is term-limited after serving since 2019. Whoever wins will be Georgia’s 84th governor.
Two routes to the ballot
Bottoms served one term as Atlanta’s 60th mayor, from 2018 to 2022, and later worked as a senior adviser in the Biden administration. In May she beat six other Democrats and took more than 56 per cent of the vote, a result that surprised many. Her platform runs through federal Medicaid expansion, healthcare access, housing and affordability, including a property tax relief package, a gas tax cut and permission for local governments to waive sales taxes on groceries. Barack Obama and Joe Biden have endorsed her, and she has partnered with U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is also on the ballot.
She has spoken about why she ran. After the presidential election, she said on WABE’s “Closer Look with Rose Scott,” she went into prayer, torn about stepping back into public office. “As a person of faith, I know that when you pray you have to be prepared for the answer,” she said. A win would make her Georgia’s first Black governor and first woman governor, end a 24-year Republican hold on the office, and make her the first Black woman to serve as a governor anywhere in the country.
Jackson, 71, founded Jackson Healthcare and is making his first run for any office. He calls himself a conservative outsider and has put close to $200 million of his own money into the race. His May primary was messier. He took just over 32 per cent, behind Lt. Gov. Burt Jones with nearly 39 per cent, and the two went to a June runoff, which Jackson won by about five points. Trump had long backed Jones, and Kemp endorsed Jones just before the runoff. After the nomination was settled, Trump endorsed Jackson and appeared with him in July.
Jackson’s pitch centers on cutting the state income tax in half and trimming property and sales taxes. He has also spoken of “intelligent” Medicaid expansion, though with few specifics, and points to his healthcare career as an advantage. He has campaigned regularly with Kemp, arguing he will continue the last eight years of policy.
The debate that wasn’t
The two have barely shared a stage. Jackson skipped several debates, including the Atlanta Press Club’s Loudermilk-Young series, which no general-election candidate for governor had missed since 1994. Bottoms appeared alone, facing an empty podium for Jackson, and made the most of it. “He’d rather hide behind his billions than explain to you his record of making billions off the taxpayers of Georgia while he is running to enrich himself,” she said, a reference to state contracts held by Jackson Healthcare.
Jackson’s answer was that voters were not asking. “I’ve not had one voter ask me a question about debates,” he said, adding that people care about affordability, gas prices, bills and property taxes.
They did meet once. In early October, Atlanta News First/WANF hosted an hour-long televised debate at Assembly Studios in Doraville, with undecided voters asking questions in a town-hall format. Data centers, Flock camera surveillance and the cost of living came up.
The final stretch
For the first time since 1994, no Libertarian is on the ballot; the party lost ballot access in 2024 and could not win it back.
With early voting under way, the rallies multiplied. Jackson and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican Senate nominee, appeared with Trump in Dalton on Oct. 16. Trump was due in Perry on Oct. 24, while the Jackson campaign said it would be in Cherokee County that day. Bottoms and Ossoff planned to campaign with Obama and Kamala Harris starting Oct. 28.
