FLOVILLA — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones held his first gubernatorial campaign event Tuesday at a state park south of Atlanta, touting his endorsement by President Donald Trump, his record in the Senate of promoting conservative legislation and his background as a businessman.
The evening event at Indian Springs State Park in Butts County featured several Republican state senators, and a former senator — Brandon Beach. Trump plucked him from Georgia earlier this year and made him U.S. Treasurer.
Beach made it abundantly clear that Trump had endorsed Jones, whom he described as a job creator.
Jones “loves Georgia, he loves his family, he loves and respects law enforcement, but what he really loves is capitalism,” Beach said, which elicited whoops and cheering. “He wants you, your kids and your grandkids to pursue the American dream.”
Jones, who lives in Jackson with his wife Jan and their two teenaged children, said state government would have a business-oriented “Chick-fil-A type” service mentality under his leadership.
He said he started businesses inside his family’s Jones Petroleum company after college, before entering politics. He used that background to knock his competition, saying he was the only candidate who had risked money to make money and who had signed employee paychecks.
“They have all been at the government trough their entire careers,” he said.
Jones is campaigning for the GOP nomination against Chris Carr, the state attorney general, who is running on a tough-on-crime agenda.
Carr has aligned himself with Trump’s MAGA base and with traditional GOP orthodoxy, threatening the administration of then-President Joe Biden against any COVID vaccine mandate, joining other attorneys general from Republican-led states in challenging a Biden administration rule governing coal and gas plant emissions and siding with Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in a State Election Board dispute between Republicans and Democrats.
But Jones holds an ace card with the recent Trump endorsement, which seemed likely given Jones’ persistent support of the president and his assertions about election fraud. Jones was investigated for a possible criminal violation after he joined Beach and others as “alternate electors” after Trump’s 2020 loss, but a special investigator exonerated Jones.
Jones is also pursuing a traditional Republican line in vowing to eliminate Georgia’s income tax. He created a study committee that featured testimony this month from longtime GOP anti-tax advocate Grover Norquist.
Whoever wins the Republican primary next year will go on to face the Democratic nominee in the November election.
Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms is running on a record of managing the city during the pandemic and is pitching Medicaid expansion. State Sen. Jason Esteves of Atlanta, a former Atlanta school board member, has made education, health care and housing top priorities. And former Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, the only Democrat in the race who has won statewide, is campaigning on his relationships with lawmakers from both parties as a former state representative, saying he also wants to expand Medicaid.
The Georgia Democratic Party issued a statement ahead of the event accusing Jones’ leadership of putting rural hospitals in financial jeopardy due to high insurance rates and a tax code “that rewards billionaires, big corporations, and whoever the latest lobbyist was to buy somebody a steak and a bourbon. … In Burt Jones’ Georgia, it’s Donald Trump and his billionaire friends first, Georgia families last.”
Jones countered at his event that bureaucratic rules make it difficult to open new hospitals, and he said he has worked against those rules as lieutenant governor.
Successful election campaigns cost money, and the Republicans came out of the gate with a major lead. Carr and Jones raised about $3 million apiece — three times what Bottoms and Esteves each raised as of the last reporting period in early July. (Thurmond had not entered the race yet.)
But Jones has a tremendous legal advantage that allows him to pull in unlimited funds, and he loaned himself another $10 million. Carr has made an issue of Jones’ use of his “leadership committee,” a special entity enjoyed by a handful of incumbents and primary winners under a 2021 state law.
As attorney general, Carr does not get a leadership committee, though he would if he were to win the Republican nomination. He recently sued Jones in federal court over the committee after losing a similar complaint to the State Ethics Commission.