Georgia governor's race: Keisha Lance Bottoms and Rick Jackson clash over debates before election

Georgia's Democratic gubernatorial nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms is challenging Republican nominee Rick Jackson to six debates across the state.

Bottoms announced Monday that she has accepted six televised debate invitations, including an Oct. 12 debate hosted by the Atlanta Press Club that she says Jackson has not yet accepted.

"Georgians deserve to hear directly from candidates for public office with multiple debates around the state," Bottoms said in a statement. "I'm ready to debate Rick Jackson in Atlanta, Macon, and Savannah. It's time for Slick Rick Jackson to stop hiding behind his billions of dollars made off of insider state contracts and to start debating the issues that matter to Georgia families."

The Jackson campaign quickly fired back, arguing that Bottoms is using the debate push as a distraction.

"Only the flailing campaign of a failed politician would spend more than six weeks ducking a debate, then suddenly demand six of them after Georgians begin to learn the truth about her disastrous record as mayor of Atlanta," said Garrison Douglas, spokesman for the Rick Jackson campaign. "The fact is Keisha Lance Bottoms has become desperate and can't talk her way out of what she did to Atlanta."

Douglas stated that Jackson's team and Gray TV had already announced their participation in a debate nearly two months prior. That town hall debate is now set for Oct. 6. The other debates accepted by the Bottoms campaign include one-on-one debates in Macon on Sept. 17, in Atlanta on Sept. 22, in Savannah on Oct. 13, and a nationally televised CNN debate in Atlanta with a date to be determined. 

The sparring comes as the two candidates prepare for a November showdown. Bottoms, a former Atlanta mayor and senior adviser in the Biden administration, cleared 50% of the vote in May to win the Democratic nomination without a runoff. Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive who grew up in poverty and public housing, secured the GOP nomination after winning a primary runoff against Lt. Gov. Burt Jones.

During the primary, Jackson faced criticism from the Jones campaign after declining a face-to-face debate due to a scheduling conflict, which resulted in Jones appearing on the Atlanta Press Club stage alone. Jackson's campaign said at the time that alternative dates were offered but not accepted.