Burt Jones and Rick Jackson heading to runoff in Georgia GOP governor's race, CBS News projects
Georgia Republicans will have to wait a little longer to pick their next gubernatorial nominee.
Neither Lt. Gov. Burt Jones nor billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson are projected to secured the majority of votes needed to win Tuesday's Republican primary for governor outright, sending the two top finishers into a runoff election scheduled for June 16.
Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, Attorney General Chris Carr, and other candidates were eliminated from the race.
The runoff sets up a rematch between the two candidates who have dominated and defined one of the most contentious GOP primary battles Georgia has seen in years, and it means voters will spend another month navigating a race that has already produced two lawsuits, a defamation claim, and a mobile billboard circling metro Atlanta.
Jones entered the primary as the clear frontrunner, buoyed by a high-profile endorsement from President Trump, who joined Jones on a tele-rally two weeks before the election, urging Republican voters to back the lieutenant governor.
"I endorse a man named Burt Jones, lieutenant governor," Trump said during the May 7 call. "He's tried and true, and he's real quality."
Trump initially endorsed Jones in August 2025, noting that Jones was the first member of the Georgia State Assembly to endorse him for president. Jones, a sixth-generation native of Jackson, and a former University of Georgia football letterman, has served as Georgia's 13th lieutenant governor since 2022 and spent more than a decade in the State Senate. He played a central role in passing Georgia's Election Integrity Act, known as Senate Bill 202.
Jackson, meanwhile, entered the race in February as a self-described conservative outsider and quickly reshaped the contest. He pledged up to $50 million of his own money to the campaign and drew on a compelling personal story: growing up in poverty, moving through five foster homes and 13 schools, and living in Atlanta's Techwood Homes projects, to make his case to Republican voters.
"I'm running for governor now to deliver the results that do-nothing politicians never will," Jackson said when he announced his candidacy.
The campaign between the two men quickly turned personal. Jackson sued Jones in federal court, arguing that a Georgia campaign finance mechanism known as a leadership committee gave Jones an unconstitutional fundraising advantage, allowing him to raise unlimited donations while other candidates remained subject to the state's normal contribution limits of $8,400 per donor. A federal judge temporarily blocked Jones' leadership committee, which had accumulated roughly $15.9 million, nearly five times the amount in Jones' regular campaign account, from raising or spending money while the legal challenge played out.
Jackson also filed a defamation lawsuit against Jones in Fulton County Superior Court after Jones' campaign alleged on social media that Jackson had made his fortune recruiting for Planned Parenthood and helping doctors perform transgender procedures on minors. Jackson called the allegations knowingly false and deliberately timed to damage him among conservative voters as polling showed the race tightening.
Jones' campaign did not back down. It doubled down with a mobile billboard circulating in metro Atlanta and a website attacking Jackson's business background. Jones' campaign spokesperson Kayla Lott said Jackson should be "proud Georgia knows how his company made its money."
Both candidates now have until June 16 to make their closing arguments to Republican voters.
Jones will lean on his Trump endorsement, his record in state government, and his roots in Georgia politics. Jackson will continue pressing his outsider credentials, his business record leading Jackson Healthcare, which operates in all 50 states, serves more than 20 million patients annually and generates more than $3 billion in revenue, and his personal story of rising from poverty to build a billion-dollar company.
The policy differences between the two are narrow. Both men have pledged to cut taxes, support law enforcement, fight illegal immigration and oppose what they call woke ideology in schools.
Whoever wins in June will face the Democratic nominee in November.