DALTON, Ga. — President Donald Trump took his midterm campaign blitz to 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, the president talked up Senate candidate Mike Collins and gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson as part of the White House effort to boost GOP enthusiasm in an election that could reshape the final years of his second presidency.
“You have to pretend I'm on the ballot,” Trump said as at least one man in the crowd cried “Trump 2028.”
Unlike some of Trump's recent trips to solidly Republican states like Alabama, Montana and Tennessee, Georgia is a critical battleground. That means Jackson, a billionaire businessman, and Collins, a two-term congressman, will likely need more than Trump stalwarts to defeat their respective Democratic opponents, former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms and Sen. Jon Ossoff.
When a protester decrying the Trump administration’s immigration policies interrupted his speech, the president suggested that “leftwing loser” Ossoff had paid the demonstrator to cause a scene.
In fact, Trump spent large swaths of his speech decrying Ossoff and other top Democrats, defending the war in Iran and promoting his U.S.-Mexico border policies rather than talking about Georgia Republicans.
“It's the most successful two years of a presidency," he said.
The feeling might have been mutual. Jackson appeared briefly onstage before Trump and didn’t mention the president at all — a notable turn for a man who once compared his bid to Trump’s 2016 campaign, promised to be “this guy’s favorite governor” and lead “like Trump, but with a Southern tone.”
For his part, Ossoff said he was "surprised Georgia Republicans want the president here.”
“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,” Ossoff said.
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 deeply conservative part of Georgia where Trump spoke. The president won the district by about 37 points in 2024, but in an April special election to replace former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican Rep. Clay Fuller won by only 12 points.
Some rallygoers don’t understand frustrations over the economy
People attending Friday's event nonetheless said they believe Trump has done better on kitchen table issues than his low national approval ratings suggest.
“I think it’s a heck of a lot better than it was under Joe Biden. That’s for sure. Or any other Democrat president for that matter,” said Dianne Leveridge, who said she voted for Trump three times would do it again if she could.
Leveridge acknowledged high gas prices but said “the oil companies aren’t playing fair.”
Cindy Massengill, 67, said Trump is “doing as good as he can do with the fight he has to fight” against “the people in office that are fighting him,” despite Republicans controlling both chambers of Congress.
Trump had been to Dalton before, last coming 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.”
On Friday, he again suggested he carried Georgia six years ago, falsely claiming “it was a rigged election.”
Election denial continues to linger 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.
As he failed to do Friday, Jackson doesn’t regularly mention Trump, a break from what he did during the primary campaign. Lately, he's more likely to compare himself to Kemp.
But the governor wasn't with his fellow Republicans on Friday, according to his top political adviser.
“He has a family obligation that day,” said Cody Hall.
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