Billionaire Rick Jackson shakes up Georgia's governor race with a play for the MAGA base

[IsailedawayfromFR]

What say you @Hoodat ?  Is he any good and does he have a chance?

Billionaire Rick Jackson shakes up Georgia's governor race with a play for the MAGA base
Jackson has vastly outspent his GOP primary opponents on the airwaves, including Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, 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.

It’s all scrambled the contest to succeed term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp in the battleground state into a slugfest for MAGA voters as Jackson attempts to paint himself in the mold of Trump against a field of better-known rivals and maintain his early jolt of momentum.

President Donald Trump has endorsed Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for governor.
“You can’t get into the race promising to spend $50 million and not see a significant impact, which is exactly what has happened,” said Katie Frost, an Atlanta-based Republican political strategist not currently working with any of the campaigns. “This effort means he thought there was an opening.”

Another X-factor in the race is that the primary would head to a runoff between the top two vote-getters if no one gets 50% of the vote — an outcome that is likelier now that it’s a four-way race.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2026-election/billionaire-rick-jackson-georgia-governor-race-maga-base-rcna261940