Backed by Brian Kemp, Rick Jackson sticks to outsider message
Today’s newsletter highlights:
- Rick Jackson’s new bipartisan coalition came with a $10,000 startup cost.
- Donald Trump’s tariffs could spur an expansion of Hyundai’s Metaplant.
- The State Election Board is still pushing the software ELLY.
Jackson’s balancing act
GOP nominee for governor Rick Jackson is still running against the establishment, even with the state’s top Republican for much of the last decade standing beside him.
At Saturday’s rally in Buford, Jackson leaned hard into the outsider message that helped carry him through the Republican primary as he campaigned alongside Gov. Brian Kemp for the first time.
“Until February, most Georgians had never heard my name, and that was on purpose,” Jackson said. “The insiders had their candidates, their connections and their plans. I was not part of them.”
He continued: “Being counted out is nothing new to me. This campaign is not about whether the insiders knew my name. It is about the Georgians whose names they have forgotten.”
Left unmentioned, of course, was that many of the GOP leaders in that room had sided with his rival, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones — including Kemp, who endorsed Jones days before the runoff.
The governor used his speech to blast Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms’ record and warn that Republicans could squander years of political gains if they grow complacent.
“We cannot take anything for granted. We cannot rely on past successes. We have to work hard every day, just like we did back in 2018, and just like we did back in 2002, in 2004, in 2006, when the Republican majority came to reality in this state. We’ve got to have that same kind of work ethic,” Kemp said.
Jackson went further, vowing to take on “the career politicians in both parties” and saying he wants to “break” the political class’s grip on the state through measures like term limits.
“Public service should never be used to pad your pockets, prop up political insiders, or play favorites in the political class,” he said.
That captures Jackson’s unusual balancing act heading into November. He’s trying to embrace the Republican power structure now lining up behind him without surrendering the anti-establishment message that helped him win the nomination.
Things to know
Good morning! The midterms are in 71 days. Oct. 5 is the last day to register to vote. Here are three things to know for today:
- Bottoms confronted Jackson outside of a National Business League event, telling him to stop including her family in his political attack ads, Greg Bluestein reports.
- U.S. Rep. Sanford Bishop has fended off Republican challengers for decades. Now, with redistricting on the horizon, he’s again a GOP target, Tamar Hallerman reports.
- Tia Mitchell and Isaac Sabetai dig into how Republican U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins and Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff manage their money.
Silver lining?
President Donald Trump’s tariffs have been disruptive to many Georgia businesses. But could they lead to an expansion of Hyundai’s massive Metaplant near Savannah?
Hyunda Motor CEO José Muñoz told CNBC last week the automaker could increase production at its Georgia facility from 500,000 units to between 700,000 and 800,000 units by 2028.
Tariffs are a tax on imports. It means things you make overseas will cost more to bring them to the U.S. But if you make things in the U.S., you can keep the cost down.
“Tariffs are helping accelerate our localization plan. That’s very, very simple,” Muñoz told CNBC. “The good thing is that we had already started before tariffs were announced. So in a way it’s helping us to accelerate.”
Bipartisan backing
Jackson’s new bipartisan coalition came with a startup cost.
Campaign records show Jackson’s leadership committee paid $10,000 to a firm run by veteran Democratic operative Billy Linville shortly before Linville launched Democrats and Independents for Rick Jackson and endorsed the GOP nominee for governor.
Linville told Bluestein the payment was to help kickstart the coalition he is leading, not compensation for his endorsement.
Election tool scrutiny
Georgia voting rights organizations and some county election officials say that a tool the State Election Board is promoting generates false information about real voters. Still, the board’s staff is promoting it.
A State Election Board staffer sent an email to county election officials on Friday pushing ELLY, along with a link to the board’s new website that links to to the tool and has an embedded 25-minute video presentation about the software given by the board’s investigators at a meeting last week.
The email to county officials, however, says “a link does not constitute an endorsement.”
The state board memo said the tool helps “identify records that may warrant review.” What to do with that information, it said, is the responsibility of local officials. Cherokee County Election Director Anne Dover has criticized the software as unreliable, saying her testing found it flagged an eligible and alive voter as potentially dead and falsely flagged dozens of voters as potentially living at nonresidential addresses.
It’s the latest promotion of the software from the board’s staff, including investigator Jason Frazier, who has a history of filing thousands of voter challenges as a citizen activist. The board’s investigators have promoted the software on at least two other occasions and sent Chatham County a list of registrations identified by ELLY to investigate, the AJC previously reported.
Before launching ELLY, the creator of the software built another tool used by conservative activists to identify voters for mass voter registration challenges. That tool’s information, too, was criticized as unreliable.
Listen up
Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast Bluestein and Tia Mitchell answer questions from listeners about Atlanta’s unsuccessful bid to host the 2028 Democratic National Convention, Democrats’ approach to gun safety and potential leadership challenges in Washington.
You can listen and subscribe to “Politically Georgia” for free on Apple Podcasts, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts.
Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.
Coastal cash
Ossoff will be in the Hamptons today raising money for his reelection campaign.
Bloomberg reported Ossoff has at least three events on his schedule. One will be hosted at the home of Alex Soros, who has continued in his father George Soros’ footsteps in spending his vast wealth to support Democrats. Hillary Clinton and Delaware U.S. Sen. Lisa Blunt Rochester are expected to attend this event.
Former New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine is hosting the second fundraiser, alongside a host committee of deep pocketed Democrats. The third is at the home of a founder and CEO of a crypto company.
Ossoff has raised nearly $100 million since 2021. Collins often criticizes him for raising a large percentage of funds from donors outside of Georgia.
Today in Washington
- Trump has no public events on his schedule.
- The House and Senate are in recess.
Mobilizing voters
Bishop William J. Barber II brought his national voter mobilization campaign to Atlanta’s historic Big Bethel AME Church Sunday night, delivering a sermon that framed voting as both a sacred right and a moral responsibility.
The sermon, titled “The Promise of the Vote,” was part of Barber’s national tour supporting “100 Days; 1,000 Marches to the Polls,” an initiative organized by Repairers of the Breach and the Moral Monday Public Pulpit.
The campaign aims to mobilize 5 million low-wage and infrequent voters, particularly across the South and in battleground states, ahead of the Nov. 3 election. More than 40 organizations and 200 local groups have joined the effort.
Barber, president of Repairers of the Breach and a longtime civil rights, voting rights and anti-poverty activist, has argued that Black and low-wage voters who do not regularly participate in elections could dramatically alter political outcomes, particularly in the South.
“The hour has already come for you to wake up,” Barber told the congregation. “The word tonight is wake up.”
Throughout the sermon, Barber placed voting within the long history of Black Americans’ struggle for citizenship and political power, invoking slavery, the Constitution, Harriet Tubman, emancipation and Brown v. Board of Education.
Before a packed sanctuary that included former Atlanta mayors Bill Campbell and Andrew Young, and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, Barber thundered the question, “Are we woke and up?” as he connected voter suppression to a broader denial of citizenship and human dignity.
“When somebody attempts to suppress your vote, they try to take away a person’s humanity,” Barber said. “The right to vote is sacred. We have to understand one thing about voting, the voting didn’t come from the government, the vote came from God.”
Shoutouts
Transition:
- Elvis Lossa is the new director of government relations for Arc 3 Communications. Lossa most recently was a policy adviser to the Texas House of Representatives Leadership.
Want a birthday shoutout in the Politically Georgia newsletter? There’s a form for that. It’s not just birthdays. We’re also interested in new jobs, engagements, birth announcements, etc.
Before you go
Gov. Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp are heading to Chile and Peru this week for an economic development trip. The governor’s office says they’ll meet with companies that have operations in Georgia and “high-ranking government officials.”
That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider information to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.