
Billionaire Rick Jackson shakes up Georgia's governor race with a play for the MAGA base
NBC News
Jackson has vastly outspent his GOP primary opponents, including Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, on the airwaves since his surprise campaign launch last month.
It’s been a month since billionaire Rick Jackson unexpectedly entered the Republican primary for governor in Georgia.
He’s quickly shaken things up.
Jackson, a health care executive, is pumping millions of dollars of his own money into an already crowded race and aggressively courting supporters of Donald Trump — even though the president has backed a different candidate.
Prior to Jackson’s late entrance, the May 19 primary had seemed to be shaping up as a three-way race among Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who is the Trump-endorsed front-runner, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and state Attorney General Chris Carr.
But after launching his campaign in early February with a pledge to spend at least $50 million, Jackson has vastly outspent his opponents on the airwaves and has rapidly seen dividends in some early public polling. He’s even leading in some of them, though most of those surveys also show a plurality of voters undecided.













