‘Only Trump-endorsed candidate’: Burt Jones flexes MAGA muscle after Georgia gubernatorial shake-up
EXCLUSIVE — Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is reinforcing his MAGA bona fides as the Trump-backed candidate in the battleground state’s gubernatorial race after another entry into the crowded GOP primary by billionaire Rick Jackson.
Despite the president’s blessing and his front-runner status in the polls to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Jones must now fend off not one but two conservatives also aligned with the GOP base, Attorney General Chris Carr and Jackson, in the latest test for Trump’s endorsement power.
“These guys are all trying to act like, and they’re trying to put themselves out there as, a Trump-endorsed candidate,” Jones told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “They’re trying to put a camouflage up.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, is also in the mix for the Republican primary on May 19.
Jones is all in on Trump’s recent FBI raid of Georgia’s largest elections office in Fulton County over the 2020 election, which has reopened divisive political wounds in the Peach State. Then a state senator, Jones was one of 16 fake Trump electors who sought to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. And in a new ad campaign worth “several million dollars,” the gubernatorial hopeful uses Trump’s own words to remind GOP voters that he is the president’s preferred candidate.
Jones said Jackson’s entry into the race last week and the healthcare executive’s willingness to spend upwards of $40 million in personal money would not alter his own strategy, adding that the ad campaign was put together prior to Jackson’s launch.
“Iron sharpens iron, so competition never has bothered me,” Jones said. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m the only Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.”
But one area where Jones stopped short of echoing Trump was in the president’s controversial call to “nationalize” voting in more than a dozen states, even as the lieutenant governor welcomes federal intervention in Fulton County. Jones neither embraced nor rebuffed the suggestion, which Republicans in Congress have largely condemned as unconstitutional or ill-advised because Democrats could one day seize on the would-be expanded federal government’s authority.
“I think we all want the same thing: We want to make it easier for folks to vote and make it harder to cheat,” Jones said of Trump’s rhetoric. “And that’s just plain and simple.”
To crack down on what …
EXCLUSIVE — Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is reinforcing his MAGA bona fides as the Trump-backed candidate in the battleground state’s gubernatorial race after another entry into the crowded GOP primary by billionaire Rick Jackson.
Despite the president’s blessing and his front-runner status in the polls to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Jones must now fend off not one but two conservatives also aligned with the GOP base, Attorney General Chris Carr and Jackson, in the latest test for Trump’s endorsement power.
“These guys are all trying to act like, and they’re trying to put themselves out there as, a Trump-endorsed candidate,” Jones told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “They’re trying to put a camouflage up.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, is also in the mix for the Republican primary on May 19.
Jones is all in on Trump’s recent FBI raid of Georgia’s largest elections office in Fulton County over the 2020 election, which has reopened divisive political wounds in the Peach State. Then a state senator, Jones was one of 16 fake Trump electors who sought to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. And in a new ad campaign worth “several million dollars,” the gubernatorial hopeful uses Trump’s own words to remind GOP voters that he is the president’s preferred candidate.
Jones said Jackson’s entry into the race last week and the healthcare executive’s willingness to spend upwards of $40 million in personal money would not alter his own strategy, adding that the ad campaign was put together prior to Jackson’s launch.
“Iron sharpens iron, so competition never has bothered me,” Jones said. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m the only Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.”
But one area where Jones stopped short of echoing Trump was in the president’s controversial call to “nationalize” voting in more than a dozen states, even as the lieutenant governor welcomes federal intervention in Fulton County. Jones neither embraced nor rebuffed the suggestion, which Republicans in Congress have largely condemned as unconstitutional or ill-advised because Democrats could one day seize on the would-be expanded federal government’s authority.
“I think we all want the same thing: We want to make it easier for folks to vote and make it harder to cheat,” Jones said of Trump’s rhetoric. “And that’s just plain and simple.”
To crack down on what …
‘Only Trump-endorsed candidate’: Burt Jones flexes MAGA muscle after Georgia gubernatorial shake-up
EXCLUSIVE — Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is reinforcing his MAGA bona fides as the Trump-backed candidate in the battleground state’s gubernatorial race after another entry into the crowded GOP primary by billionaire Rick Jackson.
Despite the president’s blessing and his front-runner status in the polls to replace term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), Jones must now fend off not one but two conservatives also aligned with the GOP base, Attorney General Chris Carr and Jackson, in the latest test for Trump’s endorsement power.
“These guys are all trying to act like, and they’re trying to put themselves out there as, a Trump-endorsed candidate,” Jones told the Washington Examiner in an interview. “They’re trying to put a camouflage up.”
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump’s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, is also in the mix for the Republican primary on May 19.
Jones is all in on Trump’s recent FBI raid of Georgia’s largest elections office in Fulton County over the 2020 election, which has reopened divisive political wounds in the Peach State. Then a state senator, Jones was one of 16 fake Trump electors who sought to overturn Democrat Joe Biden’s victory in Georgia. And in a new ad campaign worth “several million dollars,” the gubernatorial hopeful uses Trump’s own words to remind GOP voters that he is the president’s preferred candidate.
Jones said Jackson’s entry into the race last week and the healthcare executive’s willingness to spend upwards of $40 million in personal money would not alter his own strategy, adding that the ad campaign was put together prior to Jackson’s launch.
“Iron sharpens iron, so competition never has bothered me,” Jones said. “It doesn’t change the fact that I’m the only Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.”
But one area where Jones stopped short of echoing Trump was in the president’s controversial call to “nationalize” voting in more than a dozen states, even as the lieutenant governor welcomes federal intervention in Fulton County. Jones neither embraced nor rebuffed the suggestion, which Republicans in Congress have largely condemned as unconstitutional or ill-advised because Democrats could one day seize on the would-be expanded federal government’s authority.
“I think we all want the same thing: We want to make it easier for folks to vote and make it harder to cheat,” Jones said of Trump’s rhetoric. “And that’s just plain and simple.”
To crack down on what …
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