The two candidates for Georgia governor campaigned on very different turf Saturday, offering an early glimpse at their strategies for November.
Georgia’s race for governor moved across the state Saturday, with Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms venturing into heavily Republican Northwest Georgia while Republican Rick Jackson rallied alongside Governor Brian Kemp in metro Atlanta.
The contrasting campaign stops offered an early look at how both candidates are positioning themselves for November and how the fight over affordability, health care and their respective backgrounds is already becoming increasingly personal.
Jackson held his “Character Matters” rally in Buford alongside Gov. Kemp, First Lady Marty Kemp and other Republican officials.
The appearance was also a notable show of Republican unity after a contentious primary. Kemp backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones over Jackson in the Republican primary before Jackson ultimately won the nomination.
On Saturday, Kemp made clear he is now firmly behind Jackson.
“It is an honor for us to be here today to make sure that we elect Rick Jackson as our eighty-fourth governor of this great state of Georgia,” Kemp told the crowd. “2026 is indeed a fight for the soul of our state.”
Kemp later compared the stakes of this year’s contest to his narrow 2018 race for governor.
“This is 2018 all over again. Everything is on the line for our state and we know that the other side is motivated,” Kemp said.
Both campaigns focus on affordability
While much of Saturday’s Republican rally focused on Jackson’s character and Bottoms’ record as Atlanta mayor, Jackson also made affordability a central part of his pitch to voters.
“Nothing matters more than affordability,” Jackson said. “Groceries cost more, gas costs more, insurance costs more, healthcare costs more, rent costs more. Buying a home feels out of reach and property taxes keep climbing like government does not understand what families are going through. I understand.”
Jackson pledged to reduce government spending and taxes if elected.
“As governor, I will treat affordability like a crisis because for too many families it already is,” Jackson said. “Before government asks you for another dollar, it ought to account for every dime it already takes.”
Bottoms is also putting affordability at the center of her campaign, but offering a different prescription.
Her campaign billed this weekend’s swing through Decatur, Rome, Ringgold and Dalton as an opportunity to highlight plans to reduce health care and housing costs.
On Saturday afternoon, Bottoms held a meet-and-greet at the Historic Ringgold Depot alongside Democratic state Rep. Stacey Evans and 14th Congressional District candidate Shawn Harris.
She then traveled to Dalton to headline the Whitfield County Democrats’ Kennedy-Carter Dinner Saturday evening.
The geography itself is notable.
Both Catoosa County, home to Ringgold, and Whitfield County, home to Dalton, have historically favored Republicans in statewide elections. Bottoms’ decision to spend a Saturday campaigning there puts the former Atlanta mayor before voters far outside Democrats’ strongest bases in metro Atlanta.
“We were thrilled to welcome Keisha Lance Bottoms, Shawn Harris, and Rep. Stacey Evans to Ringgold today,” said Rob Nolen, Chair of the Catoosa County Democratic Committee. “The tremendous turnout sends a clear message: Voters in Northwest Georgia are engaged, energized, and ready for change! Statewide candidates recognize that our voters matter and that no part of Georgia should be written off. Today’s event showed once again that something is shifting politically in Catoosa County – and we’re just getting started.”
Bottoms’ campaign said Saturday’s events were intended in part to hear directly from Northwest Georgia residents about the challenges they are facing.
Bottoms and Jackson clash over Medicaid
Health care is quickly emerging as one of the clearest policy differences between the two candidates.
Bottoms supports expanding Medicaid in Georgia and has argued expansion would help lower health care costs, address health care worker shortages and protect rural hospitals.
In an interview Thursday, Bottoms directly tied the issue to Jackson.
“We are one of 10 states who’ve not expanded Medicaid. The rest of the country has done it. Republican-led states,” Bottoms said. “We’re paying for healthcare when we pay into the federal system in other states, but Republicans like Rick Jackson refused to do it here.”
Jackson, the founder of Jackson Healthcare, has opposed Medicaid expansion and argued his experience building one of the country’s largest health care staffing companies gives him the expertise to improve Georgia’s health care system.
At Saturday’s rally, Jackson said his administration would instead focus on lowering costs by targeting health care middlemen, increasing price transparency, using technology and expanding options in rural Georgia.
“I know health care. I’ve spent my life in in it. I know where the costs are. I know where the waste is and I know how the system helps families and I also know how it fails them,” Jackson said. “Too many Georgians are paying more and getting less. That’s going to change.”
Campaign fight turns personal
Beyond policy, the general election fight is already taking a more personal turn.
Bottoms posted a video to Instagram Friday confronting Jackson over a campaign advertisement that referenced her husband’s use of a City of Atlanta credit card for a personal trip to the Super Bowl in 2017.
In the video she tells Jackson “I’m fair game, but please stay away from my family.”
Jackson responded Saturday during a rally built around the theme of character, attacking Bottoms over her record as Atlanta mayor and defending his campaign’s scrutiny of spending during her administration.
“Now my opponent made it clear yesterday she does not want Georgians to hear about any of this,” Jackson said. “But let me be clear. Georgians did not want to cover her husband’s travel.”
Bottoms has pushed back on that narrative.
“The truth of the matter is I was the one that caught that error on the credit card within 10 days of returning from the Super Bowl,” she told 11Alive News. “I wrote a check, reimbursed the city of Atlanta when I realized the wrong credit card had been used.”
Jackson also criticized Bottoms for deciding not to seek another term as Atlanta mayor.
“When Atlanta faced some of its hardest moments, she chose not to run again,” Jackson said. “She walked away from the fight. I never will.”
Bottoms, meanwhile, has turned scrutiny back toward Jackson’s business dealings.
During Thursday’s interview, she accused Jackson of benefiting from what she described as Georgia’s “broken healthcare system” and criticized his company’s state contracts.
Jackson’s campaign has pushed back on attacks surrounding his businesses and has made his career building Jackson Healthcare a central piece of his argument that he can manage state government and create jobs.
With Election Day approaching, Saturday’s events illustrated two different immediate objectives for the campaigns: Jackson appearing with the Republican governor whose position he hopes to inherit, and Bottoms taking her message into a corner of Georgia where Democrats have historically struggled.
Source: 11alive.com