With weeks to go before Georgia’s primary election, nearly all the leading candidates for governor attended a forum Tuesday in hopes of distinguishing themselves from their competitors.

Only Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat and former Atlanta mayor, skipped the event at The Battery Atlanta hosted by the Georgia Association of Manufacturers.

Republicans Chris Carr, Brad Raffensperger, Burt Jones and Rick Jackson delivered messages about their support for industry. So did Democrats Derrick Jackson, Michael Thurmond, Jason Esteves and Geoff Duncan, while also calling for more government spending, especially in health care.

Duncan, who was a Republican when he was Georgia’s lieutenant governor, switched parties after clashing with President Donald Trump over the 2020 election. He said his transition away from the GOP had enlightened him on a Democratic “toolkit” that could be expensive while also helping millions. As governor, he said he would be “looking for opportunities to stop ignoring poverty,” using the state’s ample reserves to help pay for pre-kindergarten, assistance for the poor and Medicaid expansion.

He acknowledged the financial advantage of two of the leading candidates on the Republican side.

“Rick Jackson and Burt Jones are having to light $100 million on fire to punch each other in the face,” he told reporters after his time on the stage.

Jones, Duncan’s successor as lieutenant governor, helps run a profitable family gas company. Jackson, a health care entrepreneur, entered the race with no background in government.

Jackson painted his outsider status and wealth as an asset.

Politicians sometimes do the wrong thing to please their donors, he said. “The only reason I’m running is to represent people that don’t have a voice. I could care less about what donors say. I can actually afford to do the right thing.”

Jones said the day’s discussions about policies on affordability, energy and taxes were ultimately less determinative than a gut check by voters.

“Everybody’s talking about the same thing,” he said. “And so at the end of the day, the voters have to decide who it is that they think can best execute on these promises.”

Chris Carr, the Georgia attorney general, delivered a similar line but with a twist that seemed aimed at Jackson and Jones. He said a rich guy and a rich guy’s dad were trying to buy the election, but “candidate quality matters.”

Carr said he supported a “humane” approach to immigrants brought here as children and that he would keep a state tax credit for affordable housing. He took a harder line against data centers than other Republicans, saying no community should have one “crammed down their throat.”

Raffensperger, the Georgia secretary of state, appealed to older voters, saying he would support eliminating income taxes on retirement benefits while capping property tax increases that outpace the rise in Social Security checks. He told reporters that one solution to the health care crisis could be “charity clinics” where doctors have a “sliding fee structure” based on what patients can afford.

State Rep. Derrick Jackson, pointed to his leadership roles in the military and at General Electric and said he supported Medicaid expansion, a standard refrain among the four Democrats.

Jason Esteves, a former Atlanta school board chair and state senator, appealed to younger voters, saying he represented a “new generation of leadership.” Like nearly every candidate, he said a solution to Georgia’s workforce challenges would be to expand alternative pathways to a job. He said he would support tax credits for apprenticeship programs.

Most from both parties agreed that Georgia needs to steer more youths toward trade schools.

Michael Thurmond, who had perhaps the most expansive resume of the day, led the DeKalb County School District out of an accreditation crisis when he was an unconventional hire as superintendent over a decade ago. He went on to become the elected CEO of DeKalb.

Before all that he was the elected labor commissioner during the Great Recession, leading him to boast that he had connected more Georgians with a job than any candidate.

“White collar, blue collar, no collar. It’s not the color of the collar,” he said, “but it’s the green in the dollar that makes all the difference.”

Capitol Beat is a nonprofit news service operated by the Georgia Press Educational Foundation that provides coverage of state government to newspapers throughout Georgia. For more information visit capitol-beat.org.