Georgia’s Republican gubernatorial candidate Rick Jackson will attend President Donald Trump’s rally in the Peach State this weekend, switching plans after initially saying he would not be in attendance.
Jackson had initially planned on skipping Trump’s rally on Saturday, with his campaign telling the Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Monday that he would be “serving as a force multiplier” by rallying with Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) in Cherokee County. He pivoted from that plan on Friday.
“We can confirm that after working out the logistics, Rick will now be able to attend both his rally with Governor Kemp in Cherokee and the president’s rally in Perry,” Garrison Douglas, a spokesman for the Jackson campaign, told the Washington Examiner.
Jackson’s attendance means both Republican candidates at the top of the ticket in Georgia will join Trump outside of Macon on Saturday. Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), who is running for Senate, will be in attendance alongside Jackson and Trump at the Perry rally, his campaign told the Washington Examiner.
The shuffle comes as Trump’s approval rating has dropped in Georgia, according to a new poll from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, which put the president at just a 42% approval rating in a state he won with 50.7% of the vote in 2024.
Georgia Republican Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who originally received both Trump and Kemp’s endorsement to be the next governor before falling to Jackson, will also reportedly be in attendance at Trump’s rally on Saturday. After Jones lost the GOP primary to Jackson, Trump and Kemp both fell in line behind Jackson’s candidacy.
Jackson is locked in a competitive toss-up race against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, with RealClearPolitics’s average pinning him at a 1.5-percentage-point margin above Bottoms.
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Meanwhile, Collins has a much less favorable outlook in his race against incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA). Cook Political Report has forecast the race as “likely Democrat,” with RealClearPolitics’s average showing Ossoff leading by 8.5 percentage points.
Former President Barack Obama is set to rally with both Ossoff and Bottoms in Atlanta on Wednesday.