Jackson and Bottoms lay out visions on data centers and Medicaid at Georgia Chamber event

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Democratic gubernatorial nominee and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms (right) spoke at the Georgia Chamber Congressional Luncheon Wednesday.

Credit: Sarah Kallis/GPB News

Both candidates for governor made their pitch to Georgia’s business community at the annual Georgia Chamber Congressional Luncheon on Wednesday. 

Affordability, particularly healthcare affordability was at the top of candidates' minds at the Athens event.

Democratic nominee and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms said expanding Medicaid is a cornerstone of her affordability agenda.

“It weakens our entire healthcare system when we don't expand Medicaid," she said.

Republican nominee and healthcare executive Rick Jackson said he believes in an "intelligent" Medicaid expansion, and bringing down the cost of commercial insurance.

"I'm not gonna measure our state by how many people are on Medicaid.," he said. "I wanna measure how many people are in commercial insurance."

Georgia is one of 10 states that has not fully expanded Medicaid. Democrats in the state legislature have proposed expansion of Medicaid before, but have never received enough support from Republicans to bring the bill to a floor vote.

Candidates also made their stances on data centers clear. Jackson said that communities should be able to choose whether they host a data center or not. 

"As a business person, I just wanna give them that option so that they know both sides of the street," Jackson said. "And we've gotta educate people on the data centers. I think there's a lot of misinformation about that."

Meanwhile, Bottoms said that she supports a pause on new data centers in Georgia. 

"At the end of the day, we've got to separate fact from fiction," Bottoms said. "And we don't have enough facts on data centers to make an informed decision on how we move forward. We need a pause."

Bills attempting to reign in data centers failed in the state legislature during the 2026 session. Data centers have received bipartisan pushback over concerns about strains on environmental and energy resources. 

The chamber has taken a different approach on data centers, and has launched a data center ready designation for communities wanting to host them, saying that revenue from data centers can allow communities to reduce property taxes.