Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R-GA) withheld an endorsement from his former primary opponent, Georgia‘s Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson, during his first time speaking publicly about his campaign for governor since his GOP runoff loss.
Jones had a nearly clear path to securing the Peach State’s Republican nomination for governor before businessman Jackson hopped into the primary race earlier this year. Though Jones won the most amount of votes in the initial primary race, he lost to Jackson in the June runoff.
Jones told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution‘s “Politically Georgia” podcast that he has not heard from Jackson since the runoff.
“Nobody’s reached out,” Jones said. “So when people ask me, ‘why didn’t you endorse?’ I say, ‘Nobody’s asked me, nobody’s talked to me.’ So I haven’t heard anything from that camp.”
Jones also said he did not call Jackson on the night of the runoff to either congratulate him or concede, noting that he instead mentioned Jackson in his concession speech that night.
Jackson and Jones competed in a tense primary season, emerging as the two runoff candidates from a field of eight politicians and hitting each other hard over who would best protect President Donald Trump’s policies in Georgia. The Trump-endorsed Jones and Jackson also fought hard to secure an endorsement from popular Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who ultimately issued a surprise endorsement for Jones just days before the runoff.
Though Jackson ultimately emerged victorious despite Jones’s double endorsement from Trump and Kemp, Jones did not commit to voting for Jackson in November when asked if he would vote for his former opponent.
“We’ll see,” Jones said. “Obviously, I’m interested in supporting and keeping Georgia Republican run and keeping it red.”
“I would say that the Republican foundation needs to be sewed up,” Jones continued, pointing to the work he sees as still ahead of Jackson. “You want to talk about unity? I’m just one person. There’s grassroots people that feel alienated, there’s GOP people that feel alienated because of the style [of] race that was run.”
The primary race between Jones and Jackson quickly grew bitter, as the two spent heavily on negative ads aimed at one another. Throughout the podcast, Jones blasted Jackson’s negative ads, noting that once they began hitting him hard before Jackson had even entered the race, he knew another Republican candidate would soon hop in.
“When you have a race that runs to the gutter as quickly as possible, and it basically lambasts everything that has been successful for the last 20 years as being ‘corrupt’ or being ‘crooked,’ you’ve got to think about those people who have been in the trenches for you, working for the Republican Party. You basically alienate them too,” Jones said.
The Washington Examiner has reached out to Jackson’s campaign for comment.
OSSOFF POLLING LEAD CONTRASTS WITH BOTTOMS’S RACE AGAINST RICK JACKSON
Jackson is set to face off against Democrat and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the November general election. Recent polls have shown the general election match-up as tight, with Jackson edging Bottoms out by less than 1 percentage point in the most recent survey.
Georgia, a purple state, has two Democratic senators, but has not elected a Democrat for governor since 1999.