President Donald Trump has accelerated his campaign spending in recent weeks to stave off a catastrophic midterm outcome for the Republican Party, a financial push that Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms warns could culminate in his own ultimate humiliation.
Appearing on The Daily Beast Podcast on Sunday, Bottoms detailed how aggressive spending by Trump-affiliated PACs in Georgia highlights a broader shift in midterm momentum toward Democrats. The former Atlanta mayor and senior Biden administration adviser is currently the Democratic nominee for Georgia governor, squaring off against Republican nominee and billionaire healthcare CEO Rick Jackson.
The Shifting Battleground in Georgia
Georgia has emerged as a central flashpoint for national political spending. Senator Jon Ossoff, once viewed by the GOP as one of the easiest Democrats to beat, has pulled far ahead of his opponent in recent polling, fueling speculation regarding a potential 2028 presidential bid.
Bottoms argued that by pouring massive resources into these races and actively encouraging voters to treat the midterm elections as a referendum on his own leadership, Trump is manufacturing the conditions for a severe political rebuke. As Bottoms told host Joanna Coles, voters are taking Trump’s cue to treat him as if he is on the ballot this November, but the resulting sentiment favors political change.
“You’ve got Senator Ossoff on the ballot who, going into the election cycle, was the number one target for Republicans,” Bottoms told Coles on the podcast. “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. So it speaks to the momentum. It speaks to, I think, the nation really wanting change. And in many ways, when Trump says, imagine that he is on the ballot, people are doing just that.”
“And not in the way that he was hoping,” Coles responded.
Vigilance Amid Federal Interventions
Beyond fiscal outlays and polling shifts, Coles pressed the Democratic nominee regarding concerns over extreme measures to alter midterm outcomes, specifically noting Trump’s refusal to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act in an attempt to seize voting machines.
Bottoms confirmed that these tactics generate significant apprehension on the ground.
“It concerns me deeply because we have already seen the FBI on the ground in Fulton County, which is the county that Atlanta is in, and more than 250 FBI agents have already been dispatched by Trump’s DOJ,” Bottoms said. “So, we can’t not be concerned. We just have to be prepared. Not just in Georgia, across the country. We have to stay vigilant.”
