Rick Jackson, a self-funding Georgia businessman, beat Trump-endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones in Tuesday’s Republican gubernatorial primary after pouring roughly $100 million of his own money into the race — a sum that shattered records for a statewide GOP primary and left Trump’s allies scrambling to spin the result.
Jackson never received the president’s explicit endorsement. He didn’t seem to need it. His campaign saturated the airwaves with ads that cast him as a MAGA ally anyway, leaning on a $1 million donation to Trump’s political operation and campaign imagery that paired him with the president under the line: “Businessmen. Outsiders. Men of action.”
Reaction from Jones backers
Jones supporters were quick to blame the cash — but some in the lieutenant governor’s orbit went further, arguing Trump himself didn’t do enough. Trump brought Jones onstage at a White House event in February in northwestern Georgia and appeared on two telerallies, yet stopped short of attacking Jackson publicly even as Jackson eroded Jones’ polling lead.
“He absolutely moved the needle. He just moved the needle 15 points when we needed him to move the needle 25 points,” said a Georgia operative who backed Jones and spoke on condition of anonymity.
Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County Republican chair who supported Jackson, put it more bluntly. “The Trump endorsement has an effect, but it’s not overwhelming. It’s not the end-all-be-all for politics in Georgia,” he said.
A second Jones-aligned GOP operative framed the spending gap starkly: “I feel pretty certain that there’s never been a candidate that the president endorsed that got outspent by $90 million in the primary.”
In his victory speech Tuesday night, Jackson leaned into his outsider pitch. “I’m the only candidate who doesn’t owe a thing to the political establishment,” he said. “I can’t be bought, and I won’t back down.”
Broader primary picture
The Georgia result isn’t the only rough patch for Trump’s endorsement record this cycle. Two weeks earlier, Rep. Randy Feenstra of Iowa — another Trump-backed candidate — lost his gubernatorial bid. On the same Tuesday as Jackson’s win, Trump’s picks in two Oklahoma races fell short of the 50 percent threshold and are headed to runoffs.
Trump, for his part, didn’t concede any ground. “Congratulations to Rick Jackson, who very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP,’ and won,” the president wrote on Truth Social Wednesday morning — a few minutes after posting a broader victory lap that made no mention of Jones at all.
Next week, the question shifts to South Carolina, where Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette is struggling to hold her lead ahead of that state’s gubernatorial runoff, according to recent polling.
Originally reported by Politico. Read the original report.
