President Donald Trump has been spending like crazy in recent weeks, hoping to avert the GOP’s worst-case scenario in the midterms, but as one swing state candidate told The Daily Beast, he might be bringing about his own “ultimate humiliation” in the process.
On Sunday, The Daily Beast Podcast featured Georgia Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms as its latest. The former mayor of Atlanta and a one-time senior adviser in the Biden administration, Bottoms is currently the Democratic nominee for governor in Georgia, facing off against her Republican opponent, billionaire healthcare CEO Rick Jackson.
Georgia has been heavily targeted for spending by the GOP and Trump-affiliated PACs, with Bottoms noting how some of its major races have become emblematic of the shifting midterm momentum towards Democrats. Sen. Jon Ossoff was once viewed by the GOP as one of the easiest Democrats to beat, but he has now surged far ahead of his opponent in the polls and sparked speculation about a 2028 presidential run.
In pushing so hard for wins in Georgia and begging voters to act like he is on the ballot this year, Bottoms argued that Trump is setting himself up for a bruising failure.
“You’ve got Senator Ossoff on the ballot who, going into the election cycle, was the number one target for Republicans,” Bottoms told host Joanna Coles. “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.
Coles also pressed Bottoms about how concerned she feels about Trump going to extreme lengths to meddle with a midterm blue wave, noting his recent refusal to rule out invoking the Insurrection Act to try and seize voting machines.
“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.”