Candidates set out Medicaid and public-employee pay proposals
Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Republican Rick Jackson are competing in Georgia’s general election for governor, and the result will determine whether the state changes from Republican to Democratic control. Bottoms, 56, is the former mayor of Atlanta and could become the first Black woman elected governor in the country. She is asking for a promotion in a state whose voters have long been reluctant to hand more political power to Georgia’s largest city. Jackson, 72, is a healthcare magnate and investor who has largely self-funded his campaign.
The candidates have put forward different approaches to healthcare coverage and public-employee pay. Bottoms’ platform calls for expanding Medicaid insurance eligibility and raising the pay of teachers, firefighters and police officers. Jackson has promised public-employee raises if elected, saying he can provide them while phasing out the state income tax. He also has pledged that if he cannot cut the personal income tax in half by the end of his first term, he will not run for a second term.
Jackson supports expanding healthcare coverage through partnerships with private insurers, but his plan would require a federal waiver and a level of federal financial support that no administration has provided to a state that has not expanded Medicaid directly. Bottoms’ platform also calls for pausing data center development and blocking the expansion of AI-powered Flock surveillance cameras used by law enforcement.
Jackson’s economic messaging drew criticism from Bottoms’ campaign, which mocked how Jackson sometimes talked about the economy. Discussing vocational education during their lone debate, Jackson said, “my plumber drives a Mercedes.” Acknowledging inflation, he referred to drivers’ sticker shock at “the gas store.” After a voter at a town hall complained about Georgia’s $7.25 per hour minimum wage, Jackson replied, “Hopefully, you’re not the one that is getting the $7.50 an hour.” Bottoms has proposed raising Georgia’s minimum hourly wage to $15.
Jackson’s spending and primary wins shaped the general election
Jackson used his personal fortune to blanket the state with television and digital advertising, spending more than $200 million of his own money and dominating the airwaves and digital advertising spaces. Unlike Abrams, Bottoms never became a national fundraising phenomenon. Abrams, another Black woman and Democrats’ most recent nominee, lost general elections in 2018 and 2022 to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who is barred from seeking a third consecutive term. Bottoms wants to do what Abrams could not.
Bottoms was always the favorite in a crowded Democratic field, but she dominated the primary, winning nearly all of Georgia’s 159 counties and claiming the nomination without a runoff. Jackson began his campaign as an unknown figure but outspent all of his Republican primary opponents combined, outpacing Georgia’s attorney general, secretary of state and lieutenant governor. The lieutenant governor had received Trump’s early endorsement.
Jackson won the Republican nomination by comparing himself, as a first-time candidate, with President Donald Trump, the billionaire in the White House. During the general election, he attended rallies with Trump but has been less effusive about him as voters remain frustrated about the Iran war and an inflationary economy.
Jackson’s advertising included clips of street protests in Atlanta and Minneapolis after the 2020 police killings of Atlanta resident Rayshard Brooks and Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Brooks and Floyd were unarmed Black men killed by white officers in their respective cities. Jackson repeatedly used the Atlanta footage to attack Bottoms’ mayoral record in the closing weeks of the campaign, saying, “Bad mayors don’t make good governors.”
Candidates invoked biographies and challenged each other’s records
Bottoms has rarely acknowledged the historic nature of her candidacy, but she has invoked her family’s ties to Georgia while addressing voters on the campaign trail. “I am at least a fifth-generation Georgian,” she has said. “I say ‘at least’ because we can only trace our family back five generations — to a plantation in Crawfordville.”
Jackson has leaned heavily on his own biography, tracing a path from being a teenager in foster care and dropping out of college to the pinnacle of Jackson Healthcare, his firm that provides contract healthcare personnel to hospitals and health systems. “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,” he said. “I couldn’t afford to go to college, so I started my own business at 21.”
Jackson has sometimes teared up while telling the story, saying, “You never forget what it feels like to be hungry,” and has said the experience informs his understanding of the struggles faced by poor and working-class Georgians. He also has emphasized his personal financial support for hundreds of Georgians who aged out of foster care and state support when they turned 18.
Jackson criticized Bottoms for her decision not to seek a second term as mayor, arguing that she “abandoned Atlanta.” Bottoms went on to serve in President Joe Biden’s West Wing as a senior adviser. Bottoms accused Jackson of trying to “buy this election” and of being out of touch with the Georgians he says he understands. She also highlighted the lucrative state contracts won by Jackson Healthcare and disputed his assertions that he is a self-made outsider.
Bottoms also reminded voters that Jackson had promised to govern like “Trump but with a Southern tone” and become the president’s “favorite governor.” During their lone debate, she said, “I’m not running to be his favorite governor. I’m running to work on behalf of people like you.”
Trump later appeared with Jackson at a suburban Atlanta rally and said, “I watched this man run. He’s really phenomenal actually.” The campaigns now face Georgia voters with contrasting approaches to Medicaid coverage and public-employee pay, while Bottoms could become the first Black woman elected governor in the country.