Billionaire Rick Jackson spent more than $100 million of his own money to defeat Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Tuesday’s Republican runoff for governor, toppling a Donald Trump-backed favorite and rebuking Gov. Brian Kemp to cap one of the biggest political upsets in recent Georgia history.
Jackson will now face Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms in November after an extraordinary self-funded campaign that transformed him from a little-known, if prodigiously wealthy, healthcare executive into the Republican standard-bearer for Georgia’s top office.
The November matchup will determine if Republicans can extend their decades-long hold on the governor’s office or if Democrats can reclaim Georgia’s most important political post for the first time since former Gov. Roy Barnes lost his 2002 reelection bid.
“In November, the choice could not be more clear,” he said to cheering supporters at his campaign party at a Sandy Springs hotel. “Do we continue moving Georgia forward? Or do we go backward to Keisha Lance Bottoms’ record of excuses and failed leadership?”
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Jackson’s victory caps one of the costliest and nastiest intraparty battles in state history. He tapped his own fortune, swamping Jones with a barrage of ads that attacked him from every angle. A shadowy anonymous group spent an additional $20 million belittling Jones for months.
Jones countered with more than $25 million from his own family fortune, fueling a contest that left both candidates bruised and voters exhausted.
“We came up short,” Jones told supporters. “We had a great election day. We just didn’t have enough runway to get it all the way there.”
The race also became a test of Republican power centers. Trump endorsed Jones nearly a year ago and repeatedly reaffirmed his support. And Kemp shed his vow of neutrality to back the lieutenant governor just two days before the runoff.
Jackson’s win is a setback for both. But it lands especially hard on Kemp, who put his popularity on the line just days before the runoff, only to watch voters reject his pick for a successor.
A costly clash
Until Jackson entered the race in February, Jones appeared to have a clear path to the nomination. Instead, Jones became perhaps the nation’s highest-profile Trump-backed casualty this cycle, succumbing to a self-funding outsider who combined money and a carefully calibrated MAGA message to overcome the longtime front-runner.
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
Credit: Hyosub Shin/AJC
The result is likely to reverberate far beyond the race to succeed the term-limited Kemp. And it raises fresh questions about the limits of political endorsements, even from Trump, whose backing Jones highlighted at every stop.
The president repeatedly reaffirmed his support of Jones. He held a tele-rally for the lieutenant governor days before the election, praised him as a loyal ally in ads and reminded Republican voters that Jones backed his false claims of widespread election fraud in 2020.
Notably, though, Trump also never took a direct shot at Jackson, who has met with him twice since entering the race.
‘Favorite governor’
Jackson, 71, often opened his dozens of town halls around the state by leaning on his biography: growing up with an alcoholic mother, running away from home and living in five foster homes as a child. It was in one of those homes, he said, that he found Christianity and the roots of the business empire that would make him a billionaire.
Casting himself as a political outsider in Trump’s mold, the healthcare executive argued that politicians had failed Georgia and that his business background made him better suited to run state government.
He promised to be Trump’s “favorite governor,” embraced the president’s agenda and convinced enough MAGA voters that he represented the movement’s future despite Jones’ formal endorsement.
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
Credit: Jason Getz/AJC
What followed was a bruising contest fought on TV screens, in courtrooms, at the Capitol and across the campaign trail. And it was all waged by a candidate with seemingly bottomless resources — one whose $3 billion net worth was so large it didn’t fit on disclosure forms.
Despite their contentiousness, the candidates agreed on most major policy issues. Both supported Trump’s agenda, promised to slash income taxes and limit property tax increases and pass conservative social priorities. But the race increasingly became a battle over trust and identity.
Jones portrayed Jackson as a newcomer attempting to buy the governor’s office and highlighted his past donations to Trump critics. Jackson cast Jones as a vapid insider who would use his perch to advance his family’s insurance and petroleum businesses.
By the runoff, the attacks grew more personal and increasingly expensive. Combined spending in the race approached $160 million, making it one of the costliest primaries for governor in the country this year.
Challenge ahead
Jackson’s victory was powered by a coalition of suburban and exurban Republicans attracted to his promise to run government like a business.
Interviews with Republican voters throughout the runoff revealed many Trump supporters admired the president but did not automatically follow his endorsement.
Michelle Henry of Alpharetta said she voted for Jackson because he was less “establishment” than his rival.
“I’m looking for someone who isn’t part of the club,” said Henry, 60.
That dynamic proved especially important after the primary, when Jackson aggressively courted supporters of Attorney General Chris Carr and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger — more mainstream Republicans who together won roughly one-quarter of the vote in May.
Carr’s endorsement gave Jackson inroads to voters searching for an alternative to Jones. At the same time, Jackson chipped away at Jones’ claim to be the uncontested MAGA candidate.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Now Jackson will shift his self-funded operation to a November campaign against Bottoms, who is seeking to break the GOP’s nearly quarter-century hold on Georgia’s top office — and become the first Black governor in state history.
The challenge ahead is fundamentally different. Jackson will now look to reunite a Republican Party left battered by the most expensive and divisive gubernatorial primary in Georgia history, while also trying to convince a broader electorate that a healthcare executive with no political experience is prepared to lead Georgia.
He used his victory speech to try to blunt those concerns.
“I am ready for the fight. I am ready to lead. I am ready to deliver.”
Staff writers Patricia Murphy and Alex Nettles contributed to this report.
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