Jackson is among the largest self-funding candidates after spending nearly $200 million
Republican Rick Jackson wants to leverage both his similarities and contrasts with Donald Trump, a challenge he is tackling with his own campaign cash and a personal story that anchors his appeal to voters in his first campaign for Georgia governor. At a Saturday rally in Perry, Georgia, the 72-year-old health care magnate and investor joined Trump, marking his second appearance with the president in the closing stretch. Trump introduced Jackson to the crowd as “He’s an amazing, really an amazing man with an incredible story.” Jackson thanked Trump for a new Audi plant set to be built in Georgia and told the crowd, “I don’t have anything to prove, I really don’t. But I have a lot to give.”
The Associated Press noted that Jackson is hardly the first billionaire to promise working-class voters he will fight for them in public office, and reported that he has compared himself with the real estate mogul who reached the Oval Office. Jackson’s path differs from Trump’s: AP wrote that the 72-year-old health care magnate and investor “brings a vastly different persona to his first campaign.” Unlike Trump, who was born to wealth, Jackson spent his early years moving through foster homes. Jackson says, “I have lived in poverty.” He adds, “When you have not eaten, you never forget that, and you don’t forget the people that are struggling.”
Jackson recounted his childhood in the only debate of the general-election campaign. “My father left me at nine months old. My mother was a sixth-grade educated waitress with a severe alcohol problem,” he said. “I had seven stepfathers before I was 12. I lived in the projects, went to 13 different schools, and lived in five different foster homes.”
Jackson left college to start a business at 21. It was his first company, and it led to Jackson Healthcare, a company that provides contract nurses and other workers to hospitals and health systems, including public entities. Those public contracts have helped fuel Jackson’s fortune with taxpayer money.
At events with supporters, Jackson gets more personal. “I have, because of my background, severe abandonment issues,” he told hundreds of voters in Cleveland, a conservative enclave in the north Georgia mountains. He turns that acknowledgment into a promise: “Let me tell you one thing: I will never abandon you.” Rags-to-riches themes are not uncommon in politics, and his story yielded the campaign motto: “From foster care to billionaire.”
The nearly $200 million Jackson has spent personally puts him among the largest self-funding candidates in the history of American elections. Jackson has tried to soften the image of a billionaire executive: “It’s not my money,” he said in a northern suburb of Atlanta. He calls his fortune “God’s money” and says “my job is to have kingdom impact” with it. Jackson said the reason for the spending is to “help 11 million Georgians, to keep them from struggling.”
Jackson launched his bid as a relative unknown, though Capitol insiders knew him because of Jackson Healthcare, its lucrative state contracts and his lobbying interest in health care, business and tax policy. The Republican primary field featured a trio of statewide elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who won Trump’s endorsement in August 2025 before Jackson entered the race. During the primary, Jackson embraced the president even though Trump had not chosen him, sometimes promising to “be like Trump, but with Southern tone” and to “deliver for Georgia the same type of business solutions that President Trump is bringing to our country.”
Largely aligning himself with Trump on immigration, Jackson promised to make Georgia a national leader in deportations. In one ad, he said, “I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Mongolian, you don’t have the right to force your culture on our country.” He promised that “Criminal illegals” who “commit sick, violent crimes” would “end up deported or departed.” Soon after defeating Jones in a runoff, Jackson shelved the immigration ad but used the clip in a spot featuring his grandchildren. A child asks, “Granddad, why do you look so mean in these ads?” after watching the clip on her phone. The children and teenagers tell their grandfather he can “look cool” with a pickup truck, a dog and a hipper wardrobe, and Jackson concludes, “Let’s make Georgia better together.” He has since circulated an ad with several young adults who benefited from the millions he spent helping foster children age out of Georgia’s system when they turn 18. He tells them, “I am so proud of you,” as he chokes up.
As he softens his image, Jackson maintains traditional Republican positions, pledging to cut taxes, regulation and what he describes as waste. If he cannot halve the state income tax in four years, he promises not to seek a second term. He wants a balanced budget and full audits of state spending. AP noted that Jackson did not say that state law requires a balanced budget and that audits of state agencies have long been standard practice.
Jackson says he can expand health care without expanding Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act by financing broader coverage through partnerships with private insurers. AP noted that the approach would require Washington to grant permission and commit a level of financial support that no state has received without expanding the traditional Medicaid program. Jackson says he can do all of that while increasing spending on teacher salaries and vocational education.
At the same time, Jackson has toned down his public praise of Trump. AP attributed the change to Georgia’s general-election math and voters’ frustrations with the Iran war and inflation. In July, standing with Trump in Marietta, Jackson expressed his hope to “be this guy’s favorite governor.” When Trump returned to Dalton on Oct. 16, Jackson did not mention Trump in his own speech. Later, when Trump called him onto the stage, Jackson praised the president for advocating for foster children. When Trump announced that he would return to Georgia on Saturday, Jackson’s campaign initially planned its own event in metro Atlanta before changing it so Jackson would again appear with the president.
Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, disputes Jackson’s appeal to working-class voters. She alleges that Jackson is “trying to buy this election” so he can be a Trump stooge. The Associated Press framed the Nov. 3 contest as a test of whether an alternate, softer version of conservative billionaire politics can complement or even counter Trump’s “pugilistic populism” in Georgia, a key swing state.
Democrats have seized on the way Jackson has talked about the economy. Discussing trade schools, he said on the debate stage that “my plumber drives a Mercedes.” While discussing inflation and crime during his town hall-style debate with Bottoms, he suggested Atlantans felt unsafe “at the gas store” during her tenure. When a citizen in the debate audience asked Jackson about minimum wage and affording basic necessities, he told her, “Hopefully, you’re not the one that is getting the $7.50 an hour.” Georgia’s minimum wage is $7.25. Bottoms has proposed doubling it; Jackson has not proposed any increase. He said, “My focus is creating jobs,” and, “I’ve been creating jobs my entire life.”
Jackson’s balancing act was enough for Debbie Satterfield, a 72-year-old who came to a Jackson rally in White County wearing both a Trump shirt and a Jackson sticker. Satterfield said, “When I heard about his harsh upbringing, and to hear how far he had climbed, and starting from nothing,” which reminded her of her own start. “It reminds me of my life starting with nothing. You can see his soul.”