Jackson Launches Massive $87 Million Ad Blitz Against Keisha Lance Bottoms in Governor’s Race

Georgia gubernatorial candidate and healthcare executive Rick Jackson has launched a massive ad blitz against former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms.

While the ads were originally set to air Saturday, Aug. 1, Jackson’s initial ad in his campaign blitz seemingly launched a day earlier with the release of an ad entitled “Legacy” on X.

When asked about the attack ad against Bottoms, Dr. Kerwin Swint, a professor of political science at Kennesaw State University, stated in an email, “It hits hard, a Jackson campaign trademark. The ad calls the former Atlanta mayor greedy and calls into question her ethics as a public official.”

The Daily Signal reached out to the Bottoms and Jackson campaigns for comment but did not hear back.

Swint commented on the money Jackson has invested into his campaign’s attack ads, stating, “Jackson will easily outspend Lance Bottoms and will surely criticize her performance as mayor and question her fitness for statewide office.”

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One aspect of this race that has particularly stunned Georgia’s political landscape is Jackson’s strategy in the race. Not only did Jackson enter the race late, but when he did, he invested $50 million of his own funds into his campaign, in addition to a $40 million ad purchase.

The Current reported a Jackson campaign spokesperson’s reference of the recent campaign ad expenditure. “This is the largest general election buy of this race, and it reflects exactly how seriously we take the job of earning every vote in every one of Georgia’s 159 counties,” Garrison Douglas, the Jackson campaign spokesperson, said in a statement.

The newly launched series of ads against Bottoms centers on her time as Atlanta mayor, and the use of taxpayer funds to purchase flights for her husband to go to the Super Bowl. Additionally, it accuses her of spending $11,000 on luxury car service.

“Slick Rick Jackson is lying, just like the man he wants to be—Donald Trump,” TaNisha Cameron, a Bottoms campaign spokesperson, said in a statement, Atlanta News First reports.

She continued, “If Rick Jackson wants to talk about greed, let’s talk about the billions he made from taxpayer-funded, no-bid contracts while rural hospitals closed and Georgians lost access to health care. Now he’s trying to buy the governor’s office so he can protect the same rigged system that made him a billionaire.”

The Bottoms campaign stated that during her time as mayor, Bottoms acknowledged that she did not make these purchases on a personal account and that these purchases were paid back, Atlanta News First reports.

Dr. Charles Bullock III, a professor of political science at the University of Georgia, commented on the intentions of the ads, telling the Daily Signal in an interview that Jackson, “maybe even hopes to convert to win over some weakly affiliated Democratic voters.”

He continued on to say that Jackson would attempt to prove to Georgians to “remember the problems when she was mayor of Atlanta,” and that Jackson was basically saying, “let me plant a seed of doubt as to whether you want to vote for her.”

Ultimately, “You’ve got to hope you can win over some members of the other party, or get independent voters to get behind you,” Bullock told the Daily Signal.