Georgia draws high-profile boosters to the campaign trail as candidates enter the homestretch

Several big names are hitting the campaign trail in Georgia in hopes of driving up turnout on their side as voters choose their next governor and decide whether to send Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff back to Washington. 

Congressman Mike Collins, who is challenging Ossoff, and gubernatorial candidate and healthcare executive Rick Jackson joined President Donald Trump on the stage Saturday in middle Georgia. Both candidates also appeared on stage at Trump’s recent rally in Dalton. Jackson initially said he would skip Saturday’s rally to campaign in the northern Atlanta suburbs before reversing course Friday and saying he would do both events. 

Three GOP congressional candidates – John Cowan, Jim Kingston and Houston Gaines – joined Congressman Austin Scott in warming up the crowd in Perry. Some speakers referred to Georgia as “Trump country.” 

“What I’m asking you to do is pretend that I’m on the ballot. You got to get out and you got to vote,” Trump said to the crowd at Guardian Centers in Perry. 

Back in Atlanta, Ossoff campaigned Saturday with Pete Buttigieg, the former secretary of transportation under President Joe Biden, who is seen as a potential 2028 presidential candidate. And the Democratic nominee for governor, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, stumped in Savannah as part of a swing through south Georgia. 

Both Ossoff and Bottoms are set to join former President Barack Obama at an Atlanta rally Wednesday, and former vice president and 2024 presidential candidate Kamala Harris is set to be here Friday. 

“Look, we’ve got 10 days left,” Buttigieg said Saturday. “And we’re ready to use every one of those 10 days to get every possible vote out, right?”

While Republicans look to fire up the base, Buttigieg urged Ossoff’s supporters to try to persuade disaffected right-leaning voters to support Democratic candidates during this year’s midterms. He argued that the current climate presents an opportunity to build “a bigger, better coalition.” 

“There’s a lot of our friends and neighbors who, let’s face it, believed Republicans when they said they were going to come in and cut costs on day one,” Buttigieg said. “Now they’re looking for a different direction.”

About 1.6 million people have already cast a ballot in Georgia, with one more week of early voting and Election Day on Nov. 3. 

Trump returns to Georgia for second rally in about a week

Trump’s call to pretend he is on the ballot is one he has been repeating at stops all across the country as he tries to rally his supporters to the polls at a time when Republicans are at risk of losing control of Congress. 

“You think this is easy on my voice? It’s not,” Trump said at one point Saturday, referring to the number of rallies he has been doing lately. He’ll head to Michigan next after taking aim at Democratic U.S. Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed at Saturday’s rally in Georgia. 

Collins heaped praise on the president at the rally.

“On behalf of what was the forgotten men and women in this country, because of your bold leadership, your steady hand at the wheel, these men and women are not forgotten anymore,” he said.

With Trump’s approval ratings underwater, Democrats have pounced on his plea to pretend he is on the ballot and say they hope voters will be thinking of the president when they cast their ballots. According to a recent poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, about 55% of likely Georgia voters disapprove of the president’s job performance. 

As he has in other states, Trump used the rally to make an announcement: Audi AG will start construction next month on a new Audi plant that will produce 200,000 vehicles a year, he said. Gov. Brian Kemp announced later that the project, which will be Audi’s first U.S. manufacturing facility, is a $4 billion investment that will create about 4,500 jobs in middle Georgia. 

Trump also blasted Bottoms and Ossoff from the stage and touted his economic policies at a time when the cost of living regularly ranks as a top concern for voters. 

“Before you go and vote, take a look at your 401(k),” he said. 

The president argued that Georgia’s economy would “boom like never ever before” if Collins and Jackson are elected, saying he would “help them make it boom.” And he signaled that Georgia would have more success accessing aid, such as help for farmers, if Collins and Jackson were the ones asking for it, noting that the “president has a lot of power.”

“People don’t realize what a big difference it makes, and probably I shouldn’t say that because they’ll say this is not appropriate. But no, it makes a big difference – the difference between having people, even beyond the party, having people that you like call you as opposed to people that you can’t stand.” 

Trump said he believed he would be “the first call they make when they get to be governor and senator,” referring specifically to National Guard reinforcements. 

A Democrat running for his second term, Ossoff slammed Trump’s economic policies earlier in the day, arguing that they have hurt Georgia residents struggling to afford basic necessities.

“Under the failed president Donald J. Trump, it costs more than ever in American history to fill up your truck, to stock your fridge, to power your home or to go to a doctor,” Ossoff told the crowd gathered Saturday for the campaign stop with Buttigieg. “That’s Donald Trump’s legacy of failure as president of the United States.”

Jackson stumps in conservative strongholds as Republicans express turnout worries

Before joining Trump on stage in Perry Saturday evening, Jackson made stops in Fannin and Cherokee counties alongside Gov. Brian Kemp, who initially did not support Jackson but who has been featured in his ads and often campaigns alongside the Republican nominee. 

Fannin County is a Republican stronghold, giving over 82% of its votes to President Donald Trump in 2024. Cherokee County in the northern Atlanta suburbs is not quite as ruby red – about 69% of voters there cast a ballot for Trump in 2024 – but the strong conservative lean and its size makes it a vital source of votes for Republican candidates.

Kemp, who is term-limited, tried to fire up the Cherokee crowd to head to the polls by comparing the upcoming election with his first victory over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Kemp, then Georgia’s secretary of state, defeated Abrams by less than 55,000 votes out of 3.9 million ballots cast.

“This is 2018 all over again,” he said. “Everything is on the line for our state, and we know the other side is very motivated. Like was mentioned earlier, they want Georgia to go the way of New York or California. Well, I say not on our watch, y’all.”

The visit comes as Jackson and other Republican candidates are expressing unease with the early voting turnout. 

“A lot of rural Georgia, because you go to church and places with people, you think it’s red. It is not,” Jackson said at an earlier stop in Perry this Thursday. “It is right down the middle, and if people stay home in rural Georgia, there’s nothing that we can do to win this race. I’m just telling you, it is that close.”

Speaking at the same event, former Republican Georgia governor and U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue was even more blunt.

“If you saw the vote total statewide, that’d scare you right now too,” he said. “Guess what? They’re up in early voting. You know what that means? If we stay home in middle Georgia – not you, you’re gonna go vote – but if we stay home as a group in middle Georgia, in south Georgia, they win.”

At a separate Friday event in Henry County, Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, who campaigned with Jackson, lamented that the governor’s race in Georgia was “basically tied.”

“It shouldn’t be, but it is,” he said.

Recent polls show the race razor-close, including a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll putting Jackson at 46% and Bottoms at 45% with a 3.1% margin of error. Polling averages have Ossoff in the lead in Georgia’s U.S. Senate race. 

Courtesy of Georgia Recorder