ATLANTA (AP) — Donald Trump's midterm campaign blitz arrives in Georgia on Friday for a rally with top Republican candidates in a state that has long been the epicenter of the president's false claims about election fraud.
In Dalton, the population center of conservative northwest Georgia, Trump will appear with Senate candidate Mike Collins and gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson as part of the White House effort to boost Republican enthusiasm in an election that could reshape the final years of Trump's second presidency.
“President Trump is the unequivocal leader, best messenger, and unmatched motivator for the Republican Party,” said White House spokesperson Davis Ingle.
Yet unlike some of Trump's recent trips to solidly Republican states — Alabama, Montana, Tennessee — Georgia is a critical battleground. That means Jackson, a billionaire businessman, and Collins, a two-term congressman, need more than Trump stalwarts to defeat their respective Democratic opponents, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Sen. Jon Ossoff.
“I’m surprised Georgia Republicans want the president here,” Ossoff said. “The president coming to town reminds Georgians that Donald Trump and Mike Collins” have pushed policies that have “driven the cost of groceries, fuel and healthcare to their all-time highs.”
Collins spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said the congressman welcomes the president's attention. But he also stressed that Collins is a “bipartisan workhorse who will work with anybody,” while adding that “Ossoff hates Trump more than he loves our state.”
Bottoms also seemed thrilled with Trump's visit.
“When Donald Trump says he wants people to imagine that he is on the ballot, I am asking the people of Georgia to do just that,” she said, pointing to Jackson's promise to be Trump's “favorite governor.”
The risks have been evident even in the heavily Republican corner of Georgia where the president will visit. Voters there sent erstwhile Trump ally Marjorie Taylor Greene to Congress before she broke with the president and resigned. Trump won the district by about 37 points in 2024 and Greene won by 29. In the April special election to replace Greene, Republican Rep. Clay Fuller won by 12 points.
Republican candidates have run separately
The Dalton event will be the first time this fall that Jackson and Collins have appeared at the same venue. That contrasts with Ossoff and Bottoms holding joint rallies across Georgia, with the next scheduled for Saturday in Cobb County outside Atlanta.
Collins has been dogged by anemic fundraising and controversies that leave even Republicans questioning his viability against Ossoff. Jackson has focused on sharing the stage with other statewide Republican nominees and party leaders, and none mention Collins.
“That was not a neglect,” Trump’s former agriculture secretary and onetime Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said after one rally. “I think it was really respecting a Rick Jackson event and focusing on his election as governor.”
Asked about the joint rally, a Jackson spokesman said only, “Rick will be in Dalton and looks forward to reminding Georgia voters that bad mayors do not make good governors.”
Trump was last in Dalton on Jan. 4, 2021, the day before Ossoff and Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock won concurrent Senate runoffs. He had already lost the presidential campaign to Joe Biden but was unwilling to accept it.
“There is no way we lost Georgia. There’s no way,” Trump said that day. “That was a rigged election but we’re still fighting it.”
Election denial lingers in Georgia
Collins was elected to Congress in 2022, and he's echoed Trump's lies about 2020. He declined to recant those views this week when Ossoff pressed him during a debate. “There was a lot of doubt in that election. Yes, Joe Biden was the president,” Collins said, without saying Biden was duly elected.
Trump endorsed Collins days before his June runoff victory over former football coach Derek Dooley. When announcing his decision, Trump complained that Dooley had conceded that Biden was elected legitimately.
Gov. Brian Kemp did not endorse Collins until September, and he warned voters during the primary that the congressman could not win in November.
Trump did not endorse Jackson until after he’d won a Republican primary runoff over the president's original pick, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who had been part of Trump's effort to overturn Biden’s victory. The president cited Jones’ loyalty in his endorsement.
Jackson doesn’t regularly mention Trump like he did during the primary campaign, when the first-time candidate compared his business background to Trump. He's more likely in recent weeks to compare himself to Kemp.
But the governor won't be with his fellow Republicans on Friday, according to his top political adviser.
“He has a family obligation that day,” said Cody Hall.
This article originally appeared on Associated Press at https://www.yahoo.com/news/politics/articles/trump-rally-georgia-republicans-despite-040334371.html