{"id":2568183,"date":"2026-02-10T07:17:02","date_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:17:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/burt-jones-reaffirms-trump-credentials-after-shake-up-in-georgia-governor-race\/"},"modified":"2026-02-10T07:20:37","modified_gmt":"2026-02-10T12:20:37","slug":"burt-jones-reaffirms-trump-credentials-after-shake-up-in-georgia-governor-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/burt-jones-reaffirms-trump-credentials-after-shake-up-in-georgia-governor-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Burt Jones reaffirms Trump credentials after shake-up in Georgia governor race"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">22<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fburt-jones-reaffirms-trump-credentials-after-shake-up-in-georgia-governor-race%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2568183&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>Georgia Lt.Gov. Burt Jones is reinforcing his status as the Trump-backed, MAGA-aligned candidate in the GOP gubernatorial primary as he confronts a crowded field that now includes billionaire Rick Jackson and Attorney General Chris Carr. Despite Trump\u2019s blessing and strong polling, Jones must fend off these two rivals who some say are trying to channel the former president\u2019s endorsement, while Jones maintains he is the only candidate officially endorsed by Trump. The piece highlights Jones\u2019s use of a multi-million dollar <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/more-electioneering-dirty-facebook-suspends-gop-ad-campaign-days-before-january-georgia-runoff-election\/\" title=\"More Electioneering: Dirty Facebook Suspends GOP Ad Campaign Days Before January ... Runoff Election\">ad campaign<\/a> featuring Trump\u2019s words and notes the broader debate over Trump\u2019s calls to nationalize voting, which he stops short of fully embracing. It also covers the Fulton County election controversy, including the FBI raid in 2020 and subsequent discussions about federal involvement, with secretary of State Brad Raffensperger downplaying unsigned ballot receipts as a clerical issue.On the Democratic side, the race is described as crowded with figures such as Keisha Lance Bottoms, Geoff Duncan, and Mike Thurmond.The primary is scheduled for may 19, illustrating the ongoing leverage of Trump\u2019s endorsement in Georgia politics.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<p><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><?xml encoding=\"utf-8\" ?><\/p>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-header-search-button-mob dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><span class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-button\"><i class=\"tdb-mobile-menu-icon td-icon-mobile\"><\/i><\/span><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search\" aria-labelledby=\"td-header-search-button\">\n<div class=\"tdb-drop-down-search-inner\">\n<form method=\"get\" class=\"tdb-search-form\" action=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/\"><\/form>\n<div class=\"tdb-aj-search\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/#\" role=\"button\" aria-label=\"Search\" class=\"tdb-head-search-btn dropdown-toggle\" data-toggle=\"dropdown\"><i class=\"tdb-search-icon td-icon-search\"><\/i><\/a><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<h1 class=\"tdb-title-text\">&lsquo;Only Trump-endorsed candidate&rsquo;: Burt Jones flexes MAGA muscle after Georgia gubernatorial shake-up<\/h1>\n<div><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-title-line\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\">\n<div id=\"Brid_2499739\" class=\"tpd-featured-video bridtv\"><\/div>\n<p><strong>EXCLUSIVE &mdash;<\/strong> Georgia Lt. Gov. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/state\/3497048\/trump-endorses-burt-jones-brian-kemp-georgia-governor\/\">Burt Jones<\/a> is reinforcing his MAGA bona fides as the Trump-backed candidate in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/harriss-separation-from-biden-crucial-among-key-voting-bloc-in-nevada-washington-examiner\/\" title=\"Harris\u2019s separation from Biden crucial among key ... bloc in Nevada ... Washington Examiner\">battleground state&#038;rsquo<\/a>;s gubernatorial race after another entry into the crowded GOP primary by <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/state\/4450630\/rick-jackson-threatens-burt-jones-lock-maga-base-georgia-governor-race-campaign-launch\/\">billionaire Rick Jackson<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the president&rsquo;s blessing and his front-runner status in the <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/georgia-governor-election-polls-2026.html\">polls <\/a>to replace term-limited Gov. <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/tag\/brian-kemp\/\">Brian Kemp<\/a> (R-GA), Jones must now fend off not one but two conservatives also aligned with the GOP base, Attorney General Chris Carr and Jackson, in the latest test for Trump&rsquo;s endorsement power.<\/p>\n<div class=\"recommended-stories\">\n<h2>Recommended Stories<\/h2>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/state\/4451821\/eric-swalwell-adam-schiff-endorsement-california-governor-race\/\">Adam Schiff endorses Eric Swalwell for California governor<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/congressional\/4451703\/jasmine-crockett-political-science-experiment-senate-campaign\/\">Crockett&#8217;s &#8216;political science experiment&#8217; Senate campaign leaves Democrats baffled<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/state\/4451657\/mike-lawler-endorses-saritha-komatireddy-new-york-attorney-general\/\">Mike Lawler backs conservative challenger to Letitia James in New York attorney general race<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"article-paywall\">\n<p>&ldquo;These guys are all trying to act like, and they&rsquo;re trying to put themselves out there as, a Trump-endorsed candidate,&rdquo; Jones told the <em>Washington Examiner<\/em> in an interview. &ldquo;They&rsquo;re trying to put a camouflage up.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump&rsquo;s claims that the 2020 election was stolen, is also in the mix for the Republican primary on May 19.<\/p>\n<p>Jones is all in on Trump&rsquo;s recent <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/justice\/4441397\/how-fulton-countys-election-wars-escalated-into-an-fbi-raid\/\">FBI raid<\/a> of Georgia&rsquo;s largest elections office in Fulton County over the 2020 election, which has <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4446635\/trump-georgia-raid-2020-governor-senate\/\"><a href=\"https:\/\/amzn.to\/3YuVZYV\" >reopened divisive political wounds<\/a><\/a> in the Peach State. Then a state senator, Jones was one of 16 fake Trump electors who sought to overturn Democrat Joe Biden&rsquo;s victory in Georgia. And in a new ad campaign worth &ldquo;several million dollars,&rdquo; the gubernatorial hopeful uses Trump&rsquo;s own words to remind GOP voters that he is the president&rsquo;s preferred candidate.<\/p>\n<p>Jones said Jackson&rsquo;s entry into the race last week and the healthcare executive&rsquo;s willingness to spend upwards of $40 million in personal money would not alter his own strategy, adding that the ad campaign was put together prior to Jackson&rsquo;s launch.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;Iron sharpens iron, so competition never has bothered me,&rdquo; Jones said. &ldquo;It doesn&rsquo;t change the fact that I&rsquo;m the only Trump-endorsed candidate in the race.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>But one area where Jones stopped short of echoing Trump was in the president&rsquo;s controversial call to &ldquo;nationalize&rdquo; voting in more than a dozen states, even as the lieutenant governor welcomes federal intervention in Fulton County. Jones neither embraced nor rebuffed the suggestion, which <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/campaigns\/congressional\/4444854\/republicans-reject-trump-controversial-call-nationalize-voting\/\">Republicans in Congress have largely condemned<\/a> as unconstitutional or ill-advised because Democrats could one day seize on the would-be expanded federal government&rsquo;s authority.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I think we all want the same thing: We want to make it easier for folks to vote and make it harder to cheat,&rdquo; Jones said of Trump&rsquo;s rhetoric. &ldquo;And that&rsquo;s just plain and simple.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>To crack down on what the president insists is fraud occurring by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/group-our-vote-matters-is-suing-facebook-dominion-mark-zuckerberg-certain-state-officials-others-for-infringing-upon-right-to-vote-assemble-and-speak-freely-you-can-jo\/\" title=\"Group \u201cOur Vote Matters\u201d Is Suing Facebook, Dominion, Mark Zuckerberg, Certain ... Officials, Others for Infringing Upon Right to Vote, Assemble and Speak Freely \u2013 You Can Join Too\">local election officials<\/a> in states across the country, Trump has suggested Republicans should &ldquo;take over the voting.&rdquo; The White House maintained that the president was expressing support for the Safeguard American Voter Eligibility Act, a Republican bill requiring photo ID and proof of citizenship for voting that Democrats say would purge millions of citizens from voter rolls for lack of documentation, such as a U.S. passport or birth certificate.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump arrives for a faith town hall with Georgia Lt. Gov. Burt Jones at Christ Chapel Zebulon on Oct. 23, 2024, in Zebulon, Georgia. (AP Photo\/Alex Brandon)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>In the weeks leading up to the FBI&rsquo;s raid on Fulton County election offices, officials revealed state regulations were violated in 2020 because of more than 100 unsigned receipts from ballot tabulation machines verifying the accuracy of 315,000 ballots.<\/p>\n<p>Jones views the federal government&rsquo;s involvement as an inevitable escalation that came at long last and held no reservations about alienating swing voters in a state that will remain in the national spotlight from Sen. Jon Ossoff&rsquo;s (D-GA) reelection bid.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know what else the feds were left to do except go in there and take control of it,&rdquo; Jones said. &ldquo;It&rsquo;s unfortunate when you have these things that they continue to percolate, continue to stay in headlines, because procedures weren&rsquo;t followed, or there was admission that &lsquo;we did mess up.&rsquo;&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p><strong><a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/news\/4446635\/trump-georgia-raid-2020-governor-senate\/\">TRUMP RAID REOPENS 2020 FAULT LINES IN GEORGIA GOVERNOR AND SENATE RACES<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>As secretary of state, Raffensperger&rsquo;s office oversees Georgia elections. In similar past efforts to dispel conspiracies of mass fraud in state elections, Raffensperger downplayed the unsigned receipts from ballot machines as a &ldquo;clerical error&rdquo; from Fulton County officials that &ldquo;does not erase valid, legal votes.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>The Democratic side of the gubernatorial ticket is <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.augustachronicle.com\/story\/news\/2025\/11\/07\/georgia-governor-race-has-7-candidates-for-democratic-nomination-so-far\/87126158007\/\">just as crowded<\/a> and includes <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/interactive\/polls\/georgia-governor-election-polls-2026.html\">front-runner<\/a> and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, former Republican Lt. Gov. Geoff Duncan, and former DeKalb County Executive Mike Thurmond.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<div class=\"tdb-block-inner td-fix-index\"><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Jones touts Trump backing as GA primary tightens<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3108,"featured_media":2568184,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP25224169107236.jpg?w=696","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33651,538],"tags":[73367,4977,73452,69323,3634],"class_list":["post-2568183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-western-journal","category-washington-examiner","tag-burt-jones-2","tag-georgia","tag-governor-race-2","tag-political-news-2","tag-trump"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.washingtonexaminer.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/AP25224169107236.jpg?w=696","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568183","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3108"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2568183"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568183\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2568187,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2568183\/revisions\/2568187"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2568184"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2568183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2568183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2568183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}