Body: President Donald Trump’s investment in the Georgia governor’s race may backfire as voters grow more and more tired of his agenda, Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms has claimed.
Speaking on The Daily Beast Podcast with host Joanna Coles, Bottoms predicted that the cash flow coming into Georgia could actually hurt Republican candidates. Bottoms is running against Republican businessman Rick Jackson in the state’s gubernatorial race.
“You’ve got Senator Osoff on the ballot who, going into the election cycle, was the number one target for Republicans. He has a pretty wide margin over his opponent. And then you have our race and I am running against a billionaire who has put his own money into this race and just about every poll is showing us tied,” she said.
“So it speaks to the momentum. It speaks to, I think, the nation really wanting change,” she continued. “And in many ways, when Trump says, imagine that he is on the ballot, people are doing just that.”
Republican candidates are expected to face disaster at the ballot box in the upcoming midterm elections. And Trump, whose approval rating has sunk to one of the lowest of any president, has said his strategy to muster support for the GOP will be to focus on touting his own record as he campaigns.
Coles noted that Trump proclaiming to his voters to just vote like he is on the ballot is also not working out how he is hoping. She also pointed to Trump’s recent interview with Time Magazine, in which he did not rule out using the Insurrection Act in the midterm elections.
“How concerned are you that he may pull some tricks at the last moment?” Coles asked, to which Bottoms responded that she is “deeply concerned.”
“We have already seen the FBI on the ground in Fulton County,” she said, adding that more than 250 FBI agents have already been dispatched to the area by Trump’s DOJ.
“We can’t not be concerned; we just have to be prepared,” she continued.
She also noted that her opponent has “publicly said that the National Guard will be called in during our election cycle.”
“So you know, the question that immediately came to mind is what is he projecting that the rest of us don’t know? And he’s very close with Donald Trump,” she added.
She explained that Jackson gave $2 million to Trump during the primary, which Trump “bragged” about, noting that they were able to clip that comment from Trump and use it as negative campaign material.
She added, “Trump was Trumping. I’ll just put it that way.”
New episodes of The Daily Beast Podcast are released every Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Sunday on YouTube, and on other podcast platforms the next morning. Follow our new feed on your favorite podcast platform at beast.pub/dailybeastpod and subscribe on YouTube to watch full episodes.
