Georgia GOP Governor Race Heads to Runoff

Georgia’s Republican race for governor is not over yet.

Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones and healthcare billionaire Rick Jackson have advanced to a June 16 runoff after neither candidate secured enough support in Tuesday’s primary to win the nomination outright.

The winner will move on to the November midterm election and seek to replace Republican Governor Brian Kemp, who cannot run again because of term limits.

Jones entered the race with a major advantage: the endorsement of US President Donald Trump. He thanked Trump on Tuesday night, and a win for Jones would give the president another boost in Georgia, a battleground state where his influence has been powerful but not always decisive.

“I think Georgia just spoke, y’all,” Jones said at his election night party.

“The reason why I know we’re gonna win is because of friends and family members,” he said.

Jackson, meanwhile, is leaning into an outsider message. He has poured heavily into the race and is trying to present himself as the anti-establishment alternative to Jones.

“I cannot be bought, and I will not back down,” Jackson said.

He also described Jones as a political insider who is “working inside the system for his own benefit”.

The contest has already become one of the most expensive state-level races of the cycle. More than $125m has been spent on advertising in the Republican primary, according to AdImpact, with Jackson’s campaign accounting for more than $66m of that total. Democratic candidates for governor, by contrast, have spent about $4m.

Democrats are also choosing their nominee as they try to win the governor’s mansion for the first time since 1998. The field includes former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Republican Lieutenant Governor Geoff Duncan, former state Senator Jason Esteves and former state labour commissioner Mike Thurmond.

In another closely watched race, Democrat Jasmine Clark won her party’s nomination to succeed the late Representative David Scott in Georgia’s 13th Congressional District. Scott died in April while seeking another term.

Clark, a state representative, microbiologist and lecturer at Emory University, has said she wants to prioritise science policy in Congress. Her campaign was aided by more than $2m in outside spending from cryptocurrency-linked groups, though Clark said she did not seek their support.

She is expected to be strongly favoured in November against Jonathan Chavez, who is set to become the Republican nominee after running unopposed.

Georgia’s US Senate race is also moving forward. Representative Mike Collins, a two-term Republican who owns a family trucking business and represents a district east of Atlanta, advanced to the Republican runoff.

Collins has closely aligned himself with Trump and calls himself a “MAGA workhorse”. Immigration enforcement has been central to his campaign.

Republicans are seeking a challenger to Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff. Collins’s rivals include Representative Buddy Carter, who has emphasized his conservative record, and former college football coach Derek Dooley, who has presented himself as a political outsider.