DALTON, Ga. — President Donald Trump has spent the closing stretch of the midterm campaign barnstorming deep-red parts of the country, trying to mobilize voters already inclined to support him.
But in Dalton — the “carpet capital of the world,” with an economy deeply dependent on immigrant labor — Trump’s presence and rhetoric could create complications for the Republicans sharing his stage.
That is especially true for Rick Jackson, the GOP nominee for governor, who is scheduled to attend a rally Friday with Trump even as he has increasingly emphasized his independence from the president. Recent polls have shown Jackson holding only a narrow lead over Keisha Lance Bottoms (D), with several surveys putting the gap at about two percentage points.
Trump’s popularity has reached historic lows — his approval rating stood at 38 percent earlier this month — as he wages war with Iran and presides over a shaky economy, with fresh signs of rising prices emerging this week.
And the stump speech he has been trotting out across the country is full of anti-immigrant sentiment, which might be a harder sell in Dalton — a city where 52 percent of the population is Hispanic, and nearly 1 in 3 people are foreign-born.
“If you’re going to touch this issue, I’d touch it with white gloves and not a hammer,” said state Rep. Kasey Carpenter (R), a small-business owner whose district includes Dalton. “Because you may get applause, but as soon as you leave, the people that applaud may vote — but other people are going to vote, too. And you’re going to push a lot of people away.”
On Friday, Trump waded into the immigration issue moments after stepping off his helicopter in Dalton.
Foreign countries “emptied their prisons into our country, and a lot of them came right here to Georgia,” he said, warning that if Republicans — including Jackson and others he was endorsing in Georgia — didn’t win, immigrants would bring more lawlessness to the Peach State.
“They’ll open up your borders. You’ll have people coming in from mental institutions, murderers,” he said. “Twenty-five million people poured into the United States totally unchecked and unfettered. No checking, no vetting. They just walked right in. And many were very bad, hardened criminals.”
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Georgia) “helped the Democrats do it, and if they win in the midterms, they’re going to do it again,” he added. “You’ll have open borders again.”
Trump at times has acknowledged the political difficulty of calibrating his immigration crackdown, even as he continues to make hard-line enforcement a centerpiece of his message. Speaking at a White House Hispanic Heritage Month event last month, he described the pressure in almost contradictory terms.
“They’ll say you’re too tough, or you’re too soft,” Trump said. “Get tougher, get softer. No matter what you do, it’s always tough.”
The congressional district where Trump will speak is one of the most heavily Latino Republican-held House districts in Georgia. The area’s flooring industry has long depended on immigrant labor, and many families include a mix of citizens, legal residents, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) recipients and undocumented immigrants.
Carpenter in an interview said he’s going to the rally and that if he were to get an audience with the president, he would suggest changes to the White House’s immigration policy.
“I’d tell him, ‘We appreciate you coming, Mr. President, but as you work on your immigration policy, it’s time for a pathway for these people to permanent residence or something, because quite frankly, the state of Georgia needs them.’”
Carpenter said he has seen Trump’s support become a complication for Republican candidates before, pointing to then-Sen. Kelly Loeffler, who was appointed to the Senate but lost her 2020 race despite Trump’s intense campaigning on her behalf.
“God bless her. She never really got to be Kelly Loeffler because she got thrown in a box,” Carpenter said. “I think she had to be more right than she wanted to be. At that point, her hands were tied because Trump was on fire, and she had to grab ahold.”
Speaking to reporters before Friday’s rally, Rep. Mike Collins, the Republican challenging Ossoff, brushed aside concerns that candidates could be hurt by aligning themselves too closely with Trump. Collins argued that the president remains crucial to turning out Republican voters who might otherwise be less motivated to participate in a midterm election.
“People are just busy. They’re busy with their lives, whether raising kids or working or whatever they do,” Collins said. “And it’s a midterm election. You don’t have that presidential election that’s on the news every night … to remind them.”
That, Collins said, makes Trump’s presence particularly valuable. “That’s why things like this are so important. That’s why President Trump — he helps boost the morale and push that momentum.”
Jackson’s posture toward Trump has shifted with the campaign calendar. In the Republican primary, he pledged to become Trump’s “favorite governor.” In the general election, he has emphasized his independence, saying he would stand up to the president when necessary and increasingly invoking as a model Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who built his own political identity in part by defying Trump.
During Friday’s rally, Jackson initially spoke for five minutes but didn’t say the word “Trump” once. Instead, he stressed his own personal story and derided his opponent as a former mayor who had failed Atlanta.
Later, when Trump called Jackson onstage, he spoke for less than a minute, mostly to thank Trump for caring for the most vulnerable, including “foster children that are abused and neglected.”
Trump has made clear that he sees little benefit in giving Republican candidates distance from him, reasoning that Democrats will tie them to his presidency no matter what. Instead, the president has cast himself as the party’s chief turnout engine, repeatedly claiming that Republicans draw 49 percent fewer voters when his name is not on the ballot. He urged voters in both Alaska and Arizona to “pretend that I’m on the ballot.”
Trump also urged Georgia Republicans to vote by mail if necessary, even as he continues to repeat false claims that mail voting is plagued by fraud and has been used to steal elections.
Jackson’s campaign did not immediately return a call seeking comment.
He has embraced much of Trump’s hard-line approach to immigration, pledging to make Georgia the nation’s leader in deporting people who are in the country illegally and commit crimes, and to cooperate closely with federal immigration authorities. During the Republican primary, he drew criticism for an ad warning that such offenders would be “deported or departed.”
His opponent, Lance Bottoms, has sought to make Jackson’s connection to Trump a central argument of her campaign. During their only debate, she reminded voters that Jackson had described himself as “Trump with a Southern tone.”
Afterward, Lance Bottoms accused Jackson of trying to reinvent himself for the general election, calling him a “chameleon” and saying, “Now he wants voters to believe that he’s changed his mind.”
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