Messy. Bitter. Expensive. Nasty.
The Republican race for governor between Rick Jackson and Burt Jones has been nothing short of a slugfest.
Before the runoff even began, the rivals had spent more than $110 million combined. Most of that has come from their own deep pockets and fueled a barrage of attack ads across Georgia.
Jackson upended the contest in February when he jumped in to challenge Jones. The healthcare executive cast himself as a straight-talking political newcomer who has risen from foster care to billionaire.
As lieutenant governor, Jones is the second-most powerful elected official in the state and has spent years building a powerful political network. He also earned the coveted endorsement of President Donald Trump.
Jackson and Jones emerged from a crowded GOP primary field that included party stalwarts like Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Attorney General Chris Carr.
Now they are facing off in Tuesday’s runoff, with the winner advancing to the November general election against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, who won the Democratic nomination outright on May 19.
Here are the runoff candidates:
Rick Jackson
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Jackson’s foster-care-to-billionaire biography has been central to his campaign.
The 71-year-old never knew his father and was raised by a mother struggling with alcoholism. He grew up in foster care, moving through five foster homes and 13 schools, including a stint in Atlanta’s Techwood Homes, the nation’s first federally subsidized public housing project.
Jackson attended Lipscomb University in Nashville to study business but dropped out because of financial difficulties. He later took a sales job working on commission and began to work his way up the ladder.
In 2000, he founded Jackson Healthcare, building the Alpharetta-based company into a healthcare staffing and technology enterprise with more than 20 subsidiaries.
The company’s ties to the state have become a flashpoint in the campaign. As the COVID-19 spread in 2020, a Jackson Healthcare subsidiary inked a no-bid state contract to provide medical workers to Georgia hospitals and nursing homes.
Since then, Jackson’s companies have received more than $1 billion in payments from state agencies, according to analyses of government records. He has pledged to stop doing business with the state and “unwind” existing contracts if elected.
While Jackson has portrayed himself as an outsider, he has been a political player for years. He, his family, companies and employees gave roughly $1 million directly to candidates and their PACS, mostly Republicans, according to a 2020 Georgia Health News analysis. He has also appeared at the state Capitol to press for foster care changes, a cause rooted in his own childhood in the system.
Jackson’s campaign says his net worth tops $3 billion, so large it couldn’t fit on Georgia’s financial disclosure form. He has already poured at least $93 million of his own fortune into the contest.
Although Jones has Trump’s endorsement, Jackson has worked to claim the same political lane. He has cast himself as a blunt-spoken businessman in Trump’s mold and pledged to be the president’s “favorite governor” if elected.
Burt Jones
Credit: AP Photo/Mike Stewart
Credit: AP Photo/Mike Stewart
Jones, 47, was elected lieutenant governor in 2022 after a decade in the state Senate representing a Middle Georgia district that includes his hometown of Jackson.
A sixth-generation Jackson native, he attended the University of Georgia, where he played football as a walk-on, earned a scholarship and served as a special teams captain on the Bulldogs’ 2002 SEC championship team.
After college, Jones joined his family’s business, Jones Petroleum, a fuel wholesale distributor and convenience store operator. He also founded JP Capital & Insurance, a risk-management firm tied to the family business.
The family business has drawn scrutiny. A $10 billion development site along I-75 in Butts County owned by Jones’ father was envisioned to include a hospital and millions of square feet of data centers.
Jones was one of Trump’s earliest Republican allies in Georgia, a loyalty that has sometimes brought political and legal complications.
After Trump’s 2020 defeat, Jones pushed for a special legislative session to review “systemic failures” in the election system and supported efforts to reverse Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia.
He also served as one of the 16 Republican electors who signed documents falsely stating Trump carried the state.
A Fulton County special grand jury later recommended Jones be indicted as part of an election-interference probe, but a special prosecutor declined to pursue the case. Jones has denied wrongdoing and called the investigation a politically motivated “witch hunt.”
In the aftermath of 2020, Jones was stripped of a committee chairmanship and frozen out of Senate GOP leadership. But his standing changed when he was elected lieutenant governor, giving him control of the chamber’s agenda.
Although not as wealthy as Jackson, Jones has also dug deep into his own pockets to keep his campaign afloat, lending it more than $16 million from his family’s fortune.
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