Georgia’s candidates for governor faced undecided voters Tuesday in a town hall-style debate. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson addressed issues voters raised. It will likely mark their only live appearance together before November’s election.
Bottoms, the former Atlanta mayor, took aim at Jackson in her introduction. “While my opponent is running to enrich himself and be Trump’s favorite governor, I want to be yours, Georgia.”
As he often does, Jackson, a billionaire health care executive, recounted his rags-to-riches story. He grew up with an alcoholic mother in public housing and foster care. He then struck out on his own and made it big as an entrepreneur.
“I know what it means to struggle,” he said. “I know what it means to get a second chance, and I’m running for governor to make sure every Georgian has the same opportunity.”
Bottoms leaped on another opportunity to tie Jackson to the Trump administration later in the debate, when a Black woman who said she had lost her job due to cuts in federal funding asked the candidates how they would ensure Georgians “receive their rightful share of federal funding.”
Jackson said he wanted to have a good relationship with the White House, “no matter who’s president,” but added, “We can’t control Washington. I can control getting you a good-paying job and trained for other types of skill sets to get another job.”
Bottoms retorted, “My opponent has said he wants to be Trump’s favorite governor. He wants to be Trump with a Southern tone. He said there’s not a single policy that he disagrees with Trump on.”
“That includes cuts to the CDC, where countless employees have been laid off. That includes cuts to our education department. That includes cuts to the veterans department, cuts to our housing department, cuts that have impacted hard-working people like you. I will sue the federal government when appropriate. I will stand up to Donald Trump when necessary. I’m not running to be his favorite governor. I’m running to work on behalf of people like you.”
Jackson often compared himself to Trump during the primary campaign. When Trump endorsed him in July, Jackson stood beside the president and promised to be his “favorite governor.”
More recently, Jackson has tried to recast himself in the mold of Gov. Brian Kemp. The moderate Republican famously fended off Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
“I don’t owe anybody anything,” Jackson said in response to Bottoms. “Nobody’s ever told me what to do. My number one priority is Georgians. It’s you, and I will stand up to anybody, just like Brian Kemp has done — he works with both parties, both presidents, and he stands up when he disagrees. I will do the same thing.”
So how do Jackson’s record, platform, and policy positions on key issues actually compare to Trump’s?
As a businessman and political novice, Jackson doesn’t have a governing record to examine. But he does have a history of cutting big business deals with state government agencies.
Much of Rick Jackson’s $3 billion fortune comes from health care services through his company, Jackson Healthcare. His 21 subsidiary companies have been paid or awarded nearly $1 billion in state contracts since fiscal year 2020, according to Healthbeat Atlanta, including contracts for health care and nurse staffing.
One of its subsidiaries, Locum Tenens, provides temporary health care workers to the Georgia Department of Behavioral Health, which has paid Jackson’s company $18 million in state funds since 2022, 11Alive reported.
At a campaign appearance in August, Jackson renewed his pledge to separate his health care business from state business.
“I don’t want even the appearance that there’s ethics impropriety and all that,” he said. “I never will do business with the state of Georgia” as governor, he said.
But three weeks earlier, his company renewed its business contract with the state behavioral health department, extending it to June 30, 2027. The next governor’s term would begin six months earlier.
When that came to light, his spokesman clarified that if elected, Jackson would “unwind any contracts he has with the state.”
Georgia law generally prohibits elected officials from holding contracts with the state government, Matt Maguire, a longtime Atlanta attorney who specializes in government contracts, told Healthbeat. But several exceptions exist, including for contracts that existed before an official was elected.
Bottoms called him out on it.
“He says he’s going to dial back his business with the state, but my understanding is that just last week, he got another contract from the state,” Bottoms told reporters. “So don’t just say it. Do it. To thine own self be true. He should start with ethics and transparency in his own dealings.”
President Trump has repeatedly faced criticism for enriching himself and his family’s businesses. Critics point to his influence over federal contracting and policy.
In June, AP reported that the Air Force agreed to purchase interceptor drones from Powerus. The Florida-based company has ties to Trump’s family.
ProPublica reported that the White House directly intervened before the Pentagon agreed to loan Vulcan Elements $620 million. The North Carolina startup has ties to Donald Trump Jr.
The Trump administration has stoked unsubstantiated claims of rampant election fraud across the country. It has also encouraged federal law enforcement agents to intervene in state elections. The law prohibits such intervention, with limited exceptions, including cybersecurity threats.
Trump has refused to rule out sending troops to polls, Democracy Docket reported. This year, he doubled down on claims that Republicans should “take over the voting.”
During the debate, Jackson fielded a question about whether the Justice Department should intervene in Georgia’s election system. He said: “I don’t think it’s necessary unless Gov. Kemp thinks it’s necessary.”
He defended Georgia’s existing election framework passed under Kemp, describing it as “easy to vote and hard to cheat.”
Jackson pushed back when Bottoms cited a recording obtained by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution in which Jackson suggested the governor would use the National Guard to monitor the November election.
The recording captures Jackson telling a supporter worried about election fraud that Kemp was “going to get the National Guard.”
Jackson’s campaign later said he was not suggesting that troops be stationed at polling places, and Kemp’s office said there were no plans for such a deployment.
“I’ve never suggested that we have the National Guard to come in on this election. That’s just a complete falsehood,” Jackson said during the debate.
Bottoms clapped back that there was no point in Jackson denying that “he said the National Guard would be called in. You all can pull the tape on that.”
Amid the furious ramp-up of ICE immigration enforcement activity in the U.S. and mass deportations of undocumented immigrants during Trump’s second term, Jackson repeatedly said he would deport “criminal illegals” as governor.
As part of his $108 million self-funded campaign ad blitz on TV, Jackson adopted Trump’s hard-line immigration stance, pledging that unauthorized immigrants committing violent crimes will end up “deported or departed.”
“I don’t care if you’re a Muslim or a Mongolian, you don’t have the right to force your culture on our country,” the Jackson ad begins. “Too often, criminal illegals commit sick, violent crimes, victimize our children and get away with murder. So here’s my guarantee to them: do that when I’m governor, and you’ll end up deported or departed. Any questions?”
He also vowed to make Georgia No. 1 in the nation for deporting immigrants who break the law and to work with Trump to enforce federal immigration law.
Jackson had an awkward moment during a debate in April with Jones during the primary campaign, when Jones pressed him about whether he had employed undocumented workers, and Jackson responded, “I don’t know.”
Later that month, Jackson told a manufacturers’ forum, “I’m not anti people coming in as long as they come here legally, but we do need to do everything we can to make that possible because being here legally they pay taxes,” Capitol Beat reported.
Then in August, CNN reported that thousands of foreign-born nurses had brought a legal dispute against Avant Health Care. The nurses accused Avant of exploitation, coercive labor practices and violations of federal anti-trafficking and wage laws. Avant operates as a subsidiary of Jackson’s company, Jackson Healthcare, one of the nation’s largest healthcare staffing companies. The company reportedly settled the class action lawsuit with the immigrant nurses for $3 million.
Jackson’s campaign argues there is no contradiction between his immigration stance and Avant’s business model. A campaign spokesman told CNN that Jackson’s focus is on “criminal illegal immigration and following the law,” while Avant recruits nurses who enter the United States legally, learn English, pay taxes, and work in American hospitals.
Jackson proposes cutting Georgia’s state income tax in half by the end of his first term, and pledges to freeze or cap property taxes and to reduce taxes on select utilities.
Trump’s second-term tax policy centers on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBB). He signed it on July 4, 2025. The law permanently extends federal individual and corporate tax cuts from the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act.
It locks in individual income tax rates from 10% to 37% and increases standard deductions. It also creates new federal income tax exemptions for tip and overtime income.
The law introduces substantial cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, formerly known as food stamps), which provide health and food support to millions of people in the United States.
The Congressional Budget Office projects that this law will increase federal deficits by approximately $4.1 trillion in the next decade, Kiplinger reported. That includes about $700 billion in added interest costs on federal debt.
When asked by a voter for his opinion of the OBBB during a March 6 meet-and-greet in Thomasville, Georgia, Jackson said, “We extended the tax deductions, which are good,” adding, “If [Trump] hadn’t passed it — I’ll be honest with you — I’d be paying 40% more in taxes right now. I’d rather that money go to nonprofits than the federal government, so I like that part.”
This week, reporters noticed Jackson became the latest MAGA candidate to scrub mentions of Trump from his campaign website. Trump’s favorability ratings have steadily plummeted in public polling this year. His war in Iran and global trade tariffs have squeezed many Americans’ finances and fueled their anger.
A version of Jackson’s website from June stated that he “will work with President Trump to protect Georgians from the consequences of Washington’s failures.”
As of Monday, the statement had been removed, The New Republic reported.
