JD Vance heads to UGA amid crucial Georgia primary stretch

Vice President JD Vance is headed to the University of Georgia today as part of the White House’s effort to sell younger voters on President Donald Trump’s agenda — and to inject fresh MAGA energy into Georgia’s top races just five weeks before the nationally watched primary.

The Athens event is part of Turning Point USA’s traveling college campus series, and it comes with a clear political overlay. Trump-backed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones is expected to speak before a large crowd of students, eager to reinforce his MAGA credentials as he wages a bruising, high-dollar battle with billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson.

Other top GOP rivals are notably elsewhere: Jackson has a Savannah stop, Attorney General Chris Carr has a long-scheduled fundraiser and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger agreed months ago to participate in a Leadership Atlanta forum.

The stop also comes at a politically delicate moment for Vance, a likely 2028 presidential contender, after a rough stretch on the international stage.

His recent stops include a failed effort to bolster Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, a MAGA ally who lost his election in a historic landslide, and high-level negotiations in Pakistan that failed to reach an accord with Iran.

UGA’s Young Democrats chapter plans an afternoon protest outside Akins-Ford Arena timed to his arrival. And party chair Charlie Bailey called it a “clear warning sign that Republicans are nervous, especially as the president’s approval here continues tanking.”

He added: “With every single Republican candidate for Senate and Governor embracing the failed Trump-Vance agenda, we’ll make sure they do not make it into higher office come November.”

Things to know

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN/AJC

Credit: HYOSUB SHIN/AJC

Good morning! Republican Clay Fuller will be sworn in to Congress tonight. He’ll then have to take his first votes. Here are three things to know for today:

Supreme fighting

Credit: AJC file photos

Credit: AJC file photos

The once-sleepy races for the Georgia Supreme Court are starting to look a lot more like traditional statewide campaigns.

Allies of candidates Jen Jordan and Miracle Rankin are launching a paid TV ad blitz this morning, alongside a statewide organizing push that includes canvasses, phone banks and a pair of press events aimed at promoting their push to oust incumbent Justices Charlie Bethel and Sarah Warren.

The ad is striking. It opens with Jordan and Rankin in a courtroom facing a counsel table occupied by a trio of curmudgeonly white men, reinforcing the campaign’s effort to frame the race as the people versus the powerful.

“These guys have enough friends on the Supreme Court,” Rankin says in the spot.

Jordan closes with a direct appeal: “We’ll fight for you.”

The campaigns are also planning events in Atlanta and Savannah focused on corporate influence and abortion rights, including an appearance by Amber Thurman’s mother outside the former Savannah Medical Clinic — a reminder of the political fallout from the state’s six-week abortion ban, which was upheld by the court’s Republican-backed incumbents.

And the race is beginning to get top billing with Democrats ahead of the May 19 election.

At the party’s Carter-Lewis Dinner over the weekend, speaker after speaker — including U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff and Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear — urged activists to focus on the high court contest, signaling Democrats see an opening in a race that rarely draws this level of attention.

But big-name Republicans are focused on the races, too. On Thursday, Gov. Brian Kemp and first lady Marty Kemp will be the featured guests at a joint fundraiser for Bethel and Warren in Buckhead.

Shrug

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Credit: Ben Gray for the AJC

Former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms isn’t pretending billionaire Rick Jackson’s financial firepower doesn’t matter in the race for governor. But the Democratic front-runner is betting it won’t be decisive.

On the Republican’s willingness to pour another dump truck of cash into the contest if he wins the GOP nod, Bottoms projected confidence.

“I’ll still win,” she said flatly. “I’m the best candidate.”

She said she’s been heartened by the wave of small-dollar donors backing her campaign, while also acknowledging the obvious political reality: money buys a head start.

“Does it make it easier when you have $50 million to go up on TV earlier and do all those things? It certainly does,” she said. “Doesn’t mean it’s impossible. It just means that they’ve gotten a head start on messaging.”

Bottoms added that she expects Democratic resources to consolidate after the primary.

“But I do believe once we get past the primary and we have a nominee — and God willing, it will be me — I think the resources will begin to come in on our side.”

Those comments got Jackson’s attention, who responded quickly on social media.

“When Keisha Lance Bottoms was Atlanta’s mayor, criminals got a pass, police got no support, and the city burned,” he wrote on X. “We are not going to let her do the same thing to the entire state — no matter what it takes.”

For the record

Credit: Facebook

Credit: Facebook

Shanette Williams — the mother of Amber Nicole Thurman, who died from complications of a medicated abortion in 2022 — campaigned with Democrat Jason Esteves on Monday to kick off Black Maternal Health Week.

Williams, who endorsed Esteves’s campaign for governor last year, criticized rival Geoff Duncan for his past support of the Georgia’s anti-abortion law. Thurman died two weeks after the law took effect.

“Absolutely no one, none of them have reached out to us. No one has called to say ‘I’m sorry,’ or, you know, ‘what I did was wrong,’” she said.

Duncan and Williams have spoken, however. Williams said when she approached Duncan during last year’s Carter-Lewis Dinner, he offered a “flamboyant apology” during that conversation.

Williams notes that, in that interaction, she approached Duncan. She said Duncan has never reached out to her.

“It does not count that I have to go to you,” she said.

Duncan, who hosted a health care roundtable last week focused on Black women’s experiences, has pledged to introduce legislation to repeal the abortion ban.

“Part of my journey in becoming a Democrat was understanding the devastating situations that women experience and doing the work to learn as much as I can to make it right,” he said. “There should never be another needless tragedy like Amber Nicole Thurman in the state of Georgia.”

Health care

For more than a decade, Medicaid expansion has been the core health care argument for virtually every Georgia Democrat running statewide — and Bottoms is making it the centerpiece of her plan, too.

The Democratic front-runner on Monday rolled out a sweeping health care agenda built around expanding Medicaid, scrapping Kemp’s Georgia Pathways program and using the move to channel billions in federal dollars to cover more low-income Georgians and stabilize struggling rural hospitals.

But Bottoms is also trying to show it goes beyond the familiar Democratic playbook. Her proposal calls for steps to lower prescription drug costs, bolstering telehealth and rural maternity care, expanding mental health services and increasing pay and incentives for nurses and home health workers.

It also folds in promises to repeal Georgia’s abortion limits and tackle food deserts, casting health care as both an access issue and a cost-of-living issue.

“In many ways,” she said at an Atlanta event, “we are reconditioning our communities and the way that they approach health care and even what our expectations should be with access to health care.”

Cue the Drama

Credit: Rodney Ho/AJC

Credit: Rodney Ho/AJC

Georgia film studio founder Ryan Millsap, who launched a last-minute bid for outgoing U.S. Rep. Mike Collins’ seat, is facing renewed scrutiny over past legal disputes spotlighted in a New York Post report.

The tabloid resurrected a 2017 lawsuit that accused Millsap of fraudulently inducing an $8.5 million land investment by allegedly using what investigators later described as a forged signature from former Atlanta Braves star Jason Heyward on a document tied to the deal. The lawsuit was later settled in 2018.

Millsap dismissed the allegations as politically motivated attacks designed to derail his uphill battle against state Rep. Houston Gaines, the GOP favorite in the race.

“Ryan Millsap is running for Congress to destroy the left-wing Democrat Communists and career politicians who are destroying this country,” a campaign spokesperson said, accusing critics and the New York Post of amplifying “fake news.”

Listen up

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC

Today on the “Politically Georgia” podcast we’re looking at how a special session of the Georgia Legislature could collide with primary and runoff politics.

You can listen and subscribe to “Politically Georgia” for free on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts.

Have a question or comment for the show? Email us at politicallygeorgia@ajc.com or give us a call at 770-810-5297 and you could be featured on a future episode.

Today in Washington

Arch support

Credit: Patricia Murphy

Credit: Patricia Murphy

Rodney Mims Cook, Jr., the Atlantan we recently featured when he was appointed to lead the National Commission on Fine Arts, has gotten international attention lately for the role he played in green-lighting Trump’s massive White House ballroom project.

Cook is back in the spotlight after the Trump administration unveiled plans for a 250-foot triumphal arch to be placed at Memorial Circle, which sits on the Virginia side of the Arlington Memorial Bridge.

The “Arc de Trump,” as it’s being called in Washington, would be twice the size of the Lincoln Memorial and built to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary. Like the ballroom, it needs the Fine Arts Commission’s approval to move forward. But it is also the subject of a lawsuit to stop it.

The Washington Post reports that Cook signaled his general support for proposal, which bears a striking resemblance to Atlanta’s own triumphal arch, the Millennium Gate in Midtown, which Cook spearheaded.

“There has never been a builder president like this one, since President [Thomas] Jefferson, and I think it’s time we had another,” Cook said.

Shoutout

Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Credit: Natrice Miller / Natrice.Miller@ajc.com

Today’s birthday:

Before you go

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Credit: Miguel Martinez

Public Service Commissioner Tricia Pridemore says her campaign for Georgia’s 11th Congressional District has raised more than $430,000 in less than a month. When combined with aligned political resources, her total support tops $630,000. That includes a $200,000 transfer from her state-level committee.

That’ll do it for us today. As always, you can send your best scoops, gossip and insider information to greg.bluestein@ajc.com, tia.mitchell@ajc.com, patricia.murphy@ajc.com and adam.beam@ajc.com.