I’ve been watching the race for governor of Georgia with interest because I want to make sure my home state stays in conservative hands. I haven’t made up my mind between the two leading GOP candidates — Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and Attorney General Chris Carr — but a couple of recent endorsements and statements of support might have caught my interest.
Turning Point USA (TPUSA) has endorsed Jones. That’s obviously a big show of support, and Jones celebrated it on X.
Charlie Kirk built a powerful legacy with Turning Point Action, and I’m honored to have @tpaction_‘s endorsement in our race for Governor. The next generation of America-First conservatives is standing with us, fighting for Georgia’s future 🇺🇸 pic.twitter.com/y8cJykdb0C
— Burt Jones (@burtjonesforga) January 13, 2026
Side note: TPUSA has also endorsed Rep. Mike Collins, my representative, in his campaign to defeat Sen. Jon Ossoff in 2026, as well as State Rep. Houston Gaines, who is running to succeed Collins in my district. I support both of these conservative warriors.
Jones received another show of support that may or may not have been an outright endorsement from a more personal source: former University of Georgia head football coach Mark Richt. Richt coached Jones in 2001 and 2002.
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In an interview onstage at the Georgia Faith and Freedom Coalition event, Richt talked about how Jones went from a walk-on to a team captain whose leadership caught the attention of his teammates and coaches:
Bert was a walk-on. A walk-on’s a guy that shows up and doesn’t have the scholarship, doesn’t get everything paid for, but they are the most unselfish players on the team.
He does it because he loves his team, he loves his school, and he loves his teammates. On his captainship, voted, being the team captain. At the end of every week, the staff, the coaches would decide who’s the captain for the next game.
But at the last game of the year, we always let the players vote on who would be their captains because they would be the permanent captain for all time.
And that’s the permanent captain. That’s the type of captainship that Bert, that Bert has.
That’s a meaningful statement of support, and Richt’s words carry weight. I say that not just because he was an excellent football coach — over nearly a decade and a half at the helm, Richt resurrected a struggling program and set the stage for the runaway success we’ve experienced under Kirby Smart — but also because he is a man of deep Christian faith and conservative conviction.
Side note: After he retired from coaching, Richt and his wife moved back to Athens, Ga., because they love the community and their church family there. All of the living former Bulldogs coaches call the Athens area home because, despite the woke leadership trying to run Athens-Clarke County into the ground, it’s a wonderful community.
I’ve had a fondness for Jones as a leader because of his Bulldog ties, but knowing how highly a respectable, steady man of God like Richt regards Jones tells me how good a governor Jones can be. I’m not 100% in the endorsement camp yet, but I’m pretty Dawg gone close.
Georgia’s too important to hand over to the left — and the stakes in this governor’s race are real.
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