Screeching tires, burning rubber in the streets. Cars and property being destroyed. Calls for emergency assistance. Officer hit.
Those are just a few of the searing images and sounds running in a Rick Jackson campaign ad blitz skewering Keisha Lance Bottoms’ tenure as Atlanta mayor.
Nonetheless, Joanne Winston says she plans to support the Democratic nominee in her Georgia gubernatorial race against the healthcare billionaire anyway.
The 45-year-old nurse, who lives in South Fulton, said she was surprised to see so many fellow Black Georgians criticizing Bottoms in one of several negative ads that have been circulating on TV and social media since July.
Winston, who doesn’t follow politics closely, said she’s also seen at least one critical Jackson ad showing him praising President Donald Trump. But most of the commercials she’s viewed have been targeting Bottoms.
“It makes it worse that the ads have Black people talking about her,” Winston said. “This is the gentleman they’re saying is backing Trump. … I would [vote for] Keisha Lance Bottoms. I’m not a supporter of Trump.”
Despite Winston’s position, the political novice’s ad blitz appears to be working.
The latest YouGov poll on the governor’s race shows Jackson ahead of Bottoms 45% to 44%, a statistical dead heat within the survey’s 2.7% margin of error. It’s one of several recent polls showing Jackson slightly ahead in a tight race Bottoms was leading as recently as July.
There’s talk of a blue wave during the November midterms due to Trump’s unpopularity, high gas and grocery costs, and Americans’ disapproval of the war in Iran.
New Z to A Research internal polling data showing Democrats could win majority control of the state House in Georgia for the first time in more than two decades has some observers questioning why the race for governor is so close.
Political analysts Capital B Atlanta spoke to said lack of campaign ad spending is the main reason Bottoms is now underperforming. And concerns about electability are dissuading some wealthy Democratic Party donors from opening their wallets for Black women candidates.
Across Georgia, Black women candidates lack funding
Bottoms is one of eight Black women who won Democratic primary battles for statewide office nominations in May and June. Former Fulton County Judge Penny Reynolds Brown is running against state House Rep. Tim Fleming, R-Covington, to become the next secretary of state. State Rep. Tanya Miller, D-Atlanta, is vying against state Sen. Brian Strickland, R-McDonough, to become the state’s next attorney general.
Farming nonprofit leader Katherine Juhan-Arnold is battling incumbent Commissioner of Agriculture Tyler J. Harper. Former Atlanta City Councilmember Keisha Sean Waites is running to unseat incumbent Insurance Commissioner John King.
Former educator Lydia Powell is running against incumbent State School Superintendent Richard Woods. Nikki Porcher is running for Labor Commissioner against incumbent Bárbara Rivera Holmes. And Shelia Edwards is running against Josh Tolbert to become the next leader of Public Service Commission District 5.
Most of those candidates have had trouble raising money for campaign marketing, according to Maria Banjo, the registered Democratic National Committee member and veteran party operative who served as campaign manager for Fulton County Commission Chair Mo Ivory.
“We don’t even have literature from these Black women candidates because they can’t afford hand cards to put on doors,” Banjo said.
Banjo said high-profile losses by candidates such as Stacey Abrams and Kamala Harris, but also down-ballot candidates running statewide office campaigns in Georgia, has caused some party donors to sour on donating to Black women’s campaigns, believing they can’t realistically win.
Donors gave more than $113 million to Stacey Abrams in 2022 after she and others helped register and mobilize thousands of Black voters before and after her first gubernatorial bid, but it wasn’t enough to defeat Brian Kemp.
PSC Commissioner Alicia Johnson may have won her statewide office race last year, but Banjo said many donors still question whether a Black woman can win the race for governor and don’t want to throw their money away on a candidate who loses.
“We have several Black women candidates who are extremely qualified, put forth the effort, the hours to call people and ask for donations and the money is just not coming in,” Banjo said. “People, honestly, at this point don’t believe Black women can get over the line. And that’s a real issue. It’s kind of like a chicken and an egg. Which one comes first? They certainly can’t win without resources.”
Cash rules the race
Jackson has spent at least $108 million of his own money on TV, radio, and internet ads so far this year. The Bottoms campaign and its allies have spent only about $8 million in the lead up to November, according to a recent AdImpact analysis.
For Georgia’s U.S. Senate race, Democratic donors have given incumbent Jon Ossoff more than $80 million to win his midterm race. His campaign recently donated $3.6 million to the Democratic Party of Georgia to help support down-ballot candidates.
The investment “offers some of the clearest evidence yet of how deeply Ossoff has invested in a state party operation that he helped overhaul ahead of the 2026 midterms,” Ossoff’s campaign wrote in a September press release, citing a passage from an Atlanta Journal-Constitution article.
Democratic strategist Fred Hicks, whose firm specializes in Georgia and Florida-based candidate and issue campaigns, criticized national Democrats and the donors who support them for not spending more on ads in support of Bottoms and other Black women candidates running in competitive races in the South.
“It feels like the Democratic Party is ready and is trying to move on from Black people, especially Black women,” Hicks told Capital B Atlanta. “There is mounting pressure within the state on the national party to invest in Georgia. They are hearing from people that this is not OK.”
Hicks acknowledged Bottoms’ more than $5.7 million in campaign fundraising since May of last year is more than most gubernatorial candidates have raised historically, but said it’s not enough to help her keep pace with Jackson’s spending.
Moreover, the Democratic National Committee coffers are dry. According to USA Today, at the end of June, the DNC reported having $2.2 million less than it needed to pay off its debt.
In the meantime, pro-Jackson groups have spent or reserved nearly $76 million in airtime ahead of November’s general election, compared with roughly $8 million for Bottoms and her allies, according to the AJC.
Hicks said the party’s decision not to host the DNC convention in Atlanta and its apparent lack of support for U.S. Senate candidate Angie Nixon in Florida present a troubling pattern of not fully backing Black women candidates.
Bottoms’ campaign rebuffed the idea that she’s not getting enough financial support from local or national party leaders. Earlier this year, the former mayor repeatedly acknowledged she wouldn’t be able to match her wealthy opponents ad spending spree.
She’s been doing more campaign stops and media interviews to help make up the difference. Her latest was with The Breakfast Club radio show Monday.
“He wants to hide behind his money,” Bottoms said of Jackson during an interview with host Charlamagne Tha God.
“The one interaction we did have, he was shaking in his boots,” she added, referencing a verbal exchange in August after Jackson ran a negative ad accusing her husband of using a taxpayer-funded city credit card in 2018 to pay for a trip to the Super Bowl.
Bottoms has clarified that the trip charges were an “error,” and that her family reimbursed the city after she realized the mistake.
“He’s a gazillionaire,” Bottoms told campaign supporters about Jackson at the Gathering Spot in June. “We’ve always been used to doing a lot with a little, so I’m not worried about it. I said to my family today, ‘Y’all might as well turn off the TV. Like, don’t even look because we know that the one flaw is coming.’”
Her campaign also took aim at Jackson for declining to participate in an Atlanta Press Club debate on Sept. 22.
“Slick Rick Jackson can hide from the debate stage and spend millions to distract from his record of enriching himself on the backs of Georgians, but voters know that the only candidate in this race focused on bringing down costs, expanding access to affordable health care, and standing up to Donald Trump’s cost-raising agenda is Keisha Lance Bottoms,” a campaign spokesperson said via email.
Jackson’s campaign team noted that he has agreed to one debate on Atlanta News First on Oct. 6, adding that he doesn’t want to give Bottoms more exposure.
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