Republican billionaire Rick Jackson is walking a Trump tightrope in his quest to lead Georgia

ATLANTA (AP) — He’s hardly the first billionaire to promise working-class voters he’ll fight for them in public office. Rick Jackson, the Republican candidate for Georgia governor, has even compared himself to the real estate mogul who reached the Oval Office.

But Jackson’s path differs from Donald Trump’s, and the 72-year-old healthcare magnate and investor brings a vastly different persona to his first campaign. Unlike Trump, who was born to wealth, Jackson spent his early years bouncing through foster homes before launching his first company as a young man.

Now, he wants to leverage both his similarities and contrasts with the president, a challenge he’s tackling with buckets of his own campaign cash and a personal story that anchors his appeal to voters.

“I have lived in poverty,” Jackson says. “When you have not eaten, you never forget that, and you don’t forget the people that are struggling.”

Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor, disputes Jackson’s altruistic pitch, setting up the Nov. 3 election as a test of whether an alternate, softer version of conservative billionaire politics can complement or even counter Trump’s pugilistic populism in a key swing state.

Jackson planned to join Trump at a rally Saturday in Perry, in what would be his second appearance with the president in the closing stretch of the campaign.

‘From foster care to billionaire’

“My father left me at nine months old. My mother was a sixth-grade educated waitress with a severe alcohol problem,” Jackson said in the only debate of their general election campaign. “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 left college to start a business at 21. That led to Jackson Healthcare, a behemoth company that provides contract nurses and other workers to hospitals and health systems, including public entities that have helped fuel Jackson’s fortunes with taxpayer money.

At events with supporters, Jackson gets more personal.

“I have, because of my background, severe abandonment issues,” he told hundreds of voters in Cleveland, a conservative enclave in the north Georgia mountains. He turns that acknowledgment into a promise: “Let me tell you one thing: I will never abandon you.”

Rags-to-riches themes are not uncommon in politics, and it’s yielded Jackson’s campaign motto: “From foster care to billionaire.” But the scale is eye-popping, illuminated by the nearly $200 million Jackson has spent personally on the campaign. That puts him among the largest self-funding candidates in the history of American elections.

But on that score, too, Jackson tries to soften the caricature of the billionaire executive.

“It’s not my money,” he said in a northern suburb of Atlanta. Jackson calls his fortune “God’s money” and says that “my job is to have kingdom impact” with it.

“The reason I have spent so much money to do this,” he said, is to “help 11 million Georgians, to keep them from struggling.”

A range of images over a long campaign

Jackson launched his bid as a relative unknown, though Capitol insiders knew him because of Jackson Healthcare, its lucrative state contracts and his lobbying interest in healthcare, business and tax policy.

The Republican primary field featured a trio of statewide elected officials, including Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who won Trump’s endorsement in August 2025, before Jackson got in.

During the primary, Jackson embraced the president even though he wasn’t Trump’s choice. Jackson sometimes promised to “be like Trump, but with Southern tone.” He pledged to “deliver for Georgia the same type of business solutions that President Trump is bringing to our country.”

Largely aligning himself with Trump on immigration, Jackson promised to make Georgia a national leader in deportations.

“I don’t care if you’re Muslim or Mongolian, you don’t have the right to force your culture on our country,” he said in one ad. “Criminal illegals” who “commit sick, violent crimes” would “end up deported or departed,” he promised.

Soon after defeating Jones in a runoff, Jackson shelved the immigration ad, but not before using it as part of a spot featuring his grandchildren. “Granddad, why do you look so mean in these ads?” one asks after watching the “deported or departed” clip on her phone. The children and teenagers then tell their grandfather how he can “look cool” with a pickup truck, a dog and a hipper wardrobe.

“Let’s make Georgia better together,” the redressed Jackson concludes.

He has since circulated an ad with several young adults who benefited from the millions he spent helping foster children who age out of the Georgia system when they turn 18. “I am so proud of you,” he tells them as he chokes up.

On policy, Republican fare and centrist appeals

As he softens his image, Jackson maintains traditional Republican positions, pledging to cut taxes, regulation and what he describes as waste. If he cannot halve the state income tax in four years, he promises not to seek a second term. He wants a balanced budget and full audits of state spending, without saying state law requires a balanced budget and audits of state agencies have long been standard practice.

He says he will expand healthcare without expanding Medicaid under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Instead, he argues he can fund broader coverage through partnerships with private insurers. That would require Washington to grant permission and commit a level of financial support that no state has gotten without expanding the traditional Medicaid program.

Jackson says he can do all of that while increasing spending on teacher salaries and vocational education.

At the same time, he has toned down his Trump adulation, reflecting Georgia’s general election math and voters’ frustrations with the Iran war and inflation.

In July, Jackson stood with Trump in Marietta and expressed his hope to “be this guy’s favorite governor.” When Trump returned to Dalton on Oct. 16, Jackson did not mention Trump at all in his own speech. Later, when the president called him on stage, Jackson praised Trump — for advocating for foster children. When Trump announced that he would be back to Georgia on Saturday, Jackson’s campaign initially planned its own event in metro Atlanta before changing it up so Jackson would again be with the president.

Bottoms disputes Jackson’s everyman appeal

Bottoms says Jackson is “trying to buy this election” so he can be a Trump stooge. And Democrats have seized on the way that Jackson has talked about the economy.

Discussing trade schools, Jackson said on the debate stage that “my plumber drives a Mercedes.” Discussing inflation and crime during his town hall-style debate with Bottoms, he suggested Atlantans felt unsafe “at the gas store” during her tenure. When a citizen in the debate audience asked Jackson about minimum wage and affording basic necessities, Jackson told her, “Hopefully, you’re not the one that is getting the $7.50 an hour.”

Minimum wage is $7.25. Bottoms has proposed doubling it. Jackson has not proposed any increase. “My focus is creating jobs,” he said. “I’ve been creating jobs my entire life.”

Jackson’s balancing act is enough for Debbie Satterfield, a 72-year-old who came to a Jackson rally in White County wearing both a Trump shirt and a Jackson sticker.

“When I heard about his harsh upbringing, and to hear how far he had climbed, and starting from nothing,” she said. “It reminds me of my life starting with nothing. You can see his soul.”