by Dave Williams | Apr 19, 2024 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA — A former political aide to Donald Trump carrying the former president’s endorsement is the leading fundraiser in the campaign for the only open seat in Georgia’s congressional delegation.
But a former state senator from Newnan is touting his lead in donations from “grassroots” contributors.
Brian Jack of Fayette County, who served the Trump administration as political director, raised $623,134 during the first quarter of this year, according to a report filed with the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Jack and five others will vie for the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District in the May 21 GOP primary. Incumbent U.S. Rep. Drew Ferguson, R-West Point, announced in December he wouldn’t seek a fifth term.
Trump encouraged Jack to run for the vacant seat in the heavily Republican district in a posting on Trump’s social media site in March.
“Brian Jack is a great conservative America First candidate,” David Bossie, who served as deputy campaign manager for Trump in 2016, told NBC News. “Brian will fight the failed status quo in D.C. and be a leader for Georgia and America when President Trump is back in the White House.”
But the 3rd District contest, as is typical for any race for an open congressional seat, has drawn a lot of interest. Republican Mike Crane, who served in the Georgia Senate from 2011 through 2016, raised $504,650 in January, February, and March.
Of that amount, $458,650 came from individual donors, topping the $311,096 Jack’s campaign brought in from individual contributors.
“I’m honored to have earned the trust and financial backing of so many Georgians,” Crane said. “One dollar from Georgia speaks louder to me than $100 from DC insiders.”
Another former state senator, Republican Mike Dugan of Carrollton, raised $267,573 during the first quarter, all but about $10,000 from individual donors. Dugan, a former Senate majority leader, left the General Assembly earlier this year to launch his campaign for Congress.
“Just as he did in the legislature, Mike will deliver conservative victories, safeguard West Georgia values and be a leader of whom we are proud,” said Ben Jarrard, Dugan’s campaign manager. “Our fundraising numbers demonstrate the confidence in and local community support of Mike Dugan for Congress.”
Of the other three Republican candidates in the 3rd District, only former state Rep. Phillip Singleton of Fayetteville raised six-digit contribution numbers. His campaign brought in $143,362 in January, February and March.
Jim Bennett of Carroll County raised $35,373, and Ray Blair of Columbus brought in $32,501, according to their FEC reports.
Two heavily underdog Democratic candidates raised less than any of the Republican hopefuls. Maura Keller of Fayetteville brought in $25,520 during the first quarter, while Val Almonord of Columbus raised $19,926.
I’m afraid Trump endorsed Brian Jack is just another Hershel puppet and not worth my vote when we have two very experienced district 3 candidates in Mike Crane and Philip Singleton. Either will serve us fantastically and not kowtow to anyone but We The People!
As far as results and corruption Biden must go and the new leftist forces he has embraced must go with him. Biden etc al are the worst!
Trump wants his 5% of your Campaign funds if you use his name in your campaign.. Time to pay…
So the Democrat national campaign does not require any financial contributions from state and local?
The best way to not get my vote is for me to learn someone supported, or is supported by, Trump. It only comes up for county, state, and national elections. The Honorable Drew Ferguson is doing the right thing and disenfranchising himself from a band of idiocy and negligence.
Doug – how would you assess the success / failure rate of the last 3+ years? Only 30% +/- think we are on the right track, according to Rassmussen. Shouldn’t we consider the alternative set of values and policies to see if we could do better, not just reflexibly react to a name?
If you could set aside your Trump animosity for a minute, and discuss the last 3+ years, what are the successes and failures of values and policy?
Are we on the right track? Only 30% think so according to a recent Rasmussen poll. If not, we need to give our vote to those who will get us back in the right direction vs more of the same.
Politicians are tools, a means to an end (or at least direction). They are not idols or anyone I plan to become friends with. plus their opponents manipulate you to think they are awful people even if they are not.
This election needs to be about restoring the policies that work for American citizens and taxpayers.
Exactly MY.02. But apparently Trump hatred trumps policies that make America safer and stronger. I see it as letting emotions override reasoning. There’s a lot I don’t like about some of Trump’s behavior but his policies were much superior to this puppet of the Left who currently resides in the White House.
Ukraine-Russia, Gaza-Hamas, and Philippines-China. We finally have an opportunity to work the room to our advantage. Trump may help a small part of the economy and Biden will increase national debt. The economy isn’t going to fully prosper until we get a handle on controlling immigration to our advantage, And, I can accept another 8 percent increase in national debt over GDP. How do you think Reagan gained his popularity; he outspent our adversaries and exuberated a national integrity. I was also a fan of George H.W. Bush, though I could hardly put up with his offspring. Trump isn’t going to make an art of a deal with BRICS (look it up), but Biden may be able to set it up for a successor.
Because Trump is Trump, he has limited vision for anything other than himself, for example, who has he helped? Biden has plenty of shortfalls, but because he has a lot of national experience, he has a vision of what can be accomplished. For example, Biden demonstrated to Zelensky that Ukraine can have the same relationship with the U.S. as Israel does. NATO is not yet an option for Ukraine, but with NATO’s support, Ukraine can eventually kick Russia out of Crimea. Trump isn’t Reagan and Biden isn’t Obama. It’s not the party; it’s party leadership.
Finally, I want my grandkids to respect our leaders. I can’t have them following Trump; he is not a leader. Integrity is everything and Trump has nothing.
P.S., I should have said Israel-Iran as opposed to Gaza-Hamas.
If anyone is casting a vote out of passion instead of rationality, it is the MAGA contingent. Trump ranks in the bottom 5 in every ranking by presidential historians (including dead last in the recent University of Houston ranking released in February). He told over 30,000 confirmed lies during his four years in office, and he has been adjudicated to be a liar in two civil court proceedings resulting in hundreds of millions of dollars in payouts.
When in office, he promised to fix the southern border problem by building a magnificent wall that would be financed by Mexico (so no congressional funding would be needed). He dropped out of the Iran and Trans-Pacific treaty deals promising a much better negotiated deal because he was so good at this. Of course, he negotiated nothing. He promised to replace Obamacare with a much better heath insurance policy, but again, nothing. I do have to give him credit for following through on a fast Covid vaccination development.
Mr. Trump promises the world and delivers very little. He plays on grievance rather than any optimistic view of our country, and he does nothing to enhance respect for our country globally. He is only self-focused, and hasn’t demonstrated any coherent paradigm for national success.
So, even if you can overlook his alley cat morals, there is nothing behind them to commend 45 to a term as 47. Chaos is not a grand scheme for governance.
If you vote only with passion, perhaps he hates the same people and groups that you hate. I can think of no other reason anyone would want to hire this guy again.
STF – Put on your rational hat and answer this: is Biden worthy of being put on a pedestal either? No, Biden has serious character flaws and legal issues himself (eg serial liar, showering with his teenage daughter, sexual assault allegations, stolen secret documents and foreign influence peddling), but he has the DOJ and mainstream media covering for him.
Biden also has serious physical and mental capacity issues that will not get better. We can all see this.
So set aside the personal attacks and look at the last 3 ½ years. Are you saying that you want more of this?
And by this I mean Bidenomics, inflation, crushing national debt, an Open Border, identity politics, defund the police, soft-on-crime, fentanyl crisis, weakness and mistaken decision-making abroad, over-regulation, student loan bailouts (despite a Supreme Court ruling against), Afghanistan pullout debacle, draining the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, weaponizing government, collusion with social media to cut free speech, men in women’s private spaces and sports, lax voter laws …
Note that no one here lays out Biden “successes” for our nation, just MSNBC-level shots at Trump. We have to get past personality-voting, on either side of how one feels about Trump or Biden.
This election needs to be about restoring the policies that work for American citizens and taxpayers. We can’t keep voting for the same people and policies that are failing and expect a different result.
Hi Penny – We will just have to disagree here. Biden is certainly not my ideal as a chief executive, but I see him as infinitely better than Trump – both policies and personality. I know that Fox News endlessly hammers him with all sorts of grievances, but I am much, much better today (as is our country) than on January 6, 2021.
I respect your right to disagree, but it is not even close for me. I see no reason to give another term to the worst (or among the worst) president ever.
Penny – I appreciate the list of “Biden deficiencies” you present and see why MAGA world is so vexed by him. Of course, most of these are spurious, but the idea that a news agency that paid 3/4 of a billion dollars for outright lying is believed over the great majority of the national and international press shows how deeply disinformation is believed in the conservative world.
Unlike with Trump, none of the Biden’s delineated moral lapses have been proven in a court of law, and the Republican congress twisted itself into a pretzel before giving up showing foreign influence peddling.
Biden took over a devastated economy (as did Obama in 2009) and rescued it. U.S. inflation is lower than that of the other western democracies who faced the Covid economical disaster. Like you, I don’t like the national debt increase, but it has increased significantly under every president since Clinton (including Trump). The border can only be cured by Congressional action. Presidents can only apply band-aids. I’m ecstatic that we are out of Afghanistan and applaud a president who finally pulled the plug even though Obama and Trump had promised to withdraw our troops. The police have not been defunded and no executive orders have been soft on crime. This is a Fox myth. I share your concern about the fentanyl crisis, but it is hardly a Biden problem any more than a Trump one; little has changed in opioid abuse in the last 10 years. I also share your dismay with identity politics and wish both sides would quit using them as wedge issues.
I don’t expect MAGA nation to change any of their opinions because they are not exposed to any news sources that even claim to be evenhanded, but you seem a bit brighter than MTG. Try reading the NYT once in a while instead of living in the silo.
Again, thank you for your enlightening post. It is clarifying.
In political terms STF, we are occasionally asked are we better off today than say, 4 years ago? On April 23rd of 2020 some “idiot” in the WH briefing room actually encouraged his top health officials to study the injection of bleach into the human body as a means of fighting Covid. Some aides said later on in private that was not the worse lunatic suggestion he’s made, suggesting other areas concerning the economy, the national defense, foreign affairs and so on. So, giving credit to the Liar-in-Chief with your statement of “following through on a fast Covid vaccination development” is really far too kind and loose in your assessment of the administration’s approach to the pandemic. The mRNA vaccine development for example dates to at least 2013 in human testing. Stranger you’re getting soft in your old age.
So far, I have been unable to identify any real differences among these Republican Congressional candidates. If one would loudly refuse to kowtow to any authoritarian leader and embrace pre-2016 conservative policy positions, he would be much more appealing. The dictatorial-admiring candidates would split the Trump votes, and the true conservative candidate who believes in the rule of law and Constitutional government could take all the votes of us that disdain becoming a monarchy.
Our founders would never believe the mess our country is in 248 years after declaring independence from a monarch.
STF – I agree that I know little about any of the current candidates, but I also have not done the research yet. We do need to know the values and policies they will support.
After that, you say STF things that belong on X (Twitter). Dictators and monarchs? C’mon, man!
Hi Penny – I hope we might find one of these Republican congressional candidates who can think for himself and has the fortitude of a Liz Cheney to stand up to power.
I stick by my grave concerns about the 45th president who has repeatedly demonstrated that he does not adhere to the Constitution nor the rule of law and should never be given the chance to upend our republic again. Let’s keep the authoritarians in Russia, Hungary, Turkey, etc. and out of our White House.
This former aide to our former dear POTUS is in violation of Section 3 of the 14th Amendment of the US Constitution; specific this section disqualifies former government officials from holding office if they took an oath to support the Constitution but then betrayed it by engaging in an insurrection. All members of the Executive Branch, are required to take an oath to protect the US Constitution against all enemies, foreign and DOMESTIC. Additionally, this candidate is an election denier. This candidate doesn’t deserve anyone’s consideration, much less than our vote.
The main problem with your argument is that he was not part of an insurrection – – not charged nor convicted. Tarring with a broad brush is something I thought we all learned not to do at a young age.
As to your election denier claim, two things. You must be able to state where the line is that someone can challenge election integrity, and with no voter ID, unattended drop boxes, no signature mail-ins, etc there is ample opportunity for someone to try to take advantage.
And you would have to call out Hilary Clinton and Stacey Abrams who are other, well-known, “questioners” of election results. Have you done this?