ATLANTA — Georgians who pulled a Democratic ballot Tuesday had a clear preference for governor, giving former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms a commanding early lead over six challengers Tuesday night before all votes had been counted.
But Republican voters were divided, giving no GOP contender for governor a majority. They mostly went for two candidates out of the field of eight, putting Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire entrepreneur Rick Jackson in the lead with a similar number of votes.
With Fulton County and nearly two dozen other counties remaining to be counted, Jackson took the stage and looked ahead to the June 16 primary runoff election.
“The job is not done. We have 28 days to finish it,” he told supporters at the Omni Hotel at The Battery Atlanta.
Jackson, who founded and leads a health care staffing and services company, dropped tens of millions of dollars of his own money on political ads, and quickly took a lead in polling, in a race that had seemed to be Jones’ to lose.
Jones, a former state senator who won the lieutenant governor’s office four years ago, had something no other candidate did: an endorsement from President Donald Trump.
The pair go back many years. Jones faced the risk of prosecution after supporting Trump’s effort to overturn his 2020 presidential election loss to Joe Biden. Jones served as one of 16 fake electors for Trump and was investigated by Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis until the courts disqualified her from the case due to a conflict of interest.
Earlier this month, Trump held a “tele-rally” to boost Jones’ campaign.
He “has my complete and total endorsement,” Trump said in the May 6 call. “He blows his competition away.”
Even so, Jackson pitched himself in Trump’s image, telling supporters Tuesday that he opposed “illegals” and “woke ideology” and supported law enforcement, working moms and foster children, having been one himself.
“I’ll be President Trump’s favorite governor,” Jackson said.
Jones pushed back Tuesday night, issuing a statement that noted his slight edge in the results.
“Tonight Georgia sent a clear message — you can’t buy this state and now, Georgia, it’s time to finish the drill,” the Jones campaign said in a statement. “Georgia is too important to risk handing it to a billionaire Never Trumper with a checkbook.”
He was referring to Jackson.
No one on the Democratic side came close to Bottoms’ lead late Tuesday, with the caveat that Fulton, Georgia’s most populous county, had not yet reported results due to delays at a polling site.
The former Atlanta mayor turned off many voters when she declined to run for a second term, instead choosing to serve in the Biden administration.
But she was a known quantity and all but one of the others in the Democratic field were men, which was a factor for voters such as Juliette Morgan.
The retired public health worker emerged from Ormewood Church in Atlanta Tuesday afternoon and said she had considered voting for Geoff Duncan, a former Republican who had switched parties after clashing with Trump. She had seen him a lot on CNN and said he seemed amiable.
“Of all people, I would have (voted for) him,” Morgan said. “I just, I don’t know, I’m inclined to vote for women lately.”
Her husband, Bob Maxfield, a high school science teacher, followed her lead and cast another vote for Bottoms.