Post-Primary War of Words

The Chattanooga Times Free Press filed a story a couple of days ago about the war of words that erupted between Jeremy Jones and Jeff Holcomb after the primary run-off election on July 26th for the two contenders in Georgia House District 3.

You may recall that qualifying was reopened by the Georgia Republican Party after incumbent State Representative Tom Weldon (R) withdrew his name after qualifying and left Dewayne Hill on the ballot alone.  Both Messrs. Jones and Holcomb qualified for the May Republican primary ballot.  Holcomb, with 48.3% of the vote, made it to a run-off with Hill, who won 38.6% of the vote.  Jones did not and endorsed Hill.

Apparently this endorsement was “kowtowing” to #TheEstablishment according to Mr. Holcomb since Mr. Hill received donations from incumbent state representatives and senators according to the story.  Fast forward to election day, and the two exchanged words outside of the Boynton precinct where Jones was campaigning for Hill and Holcomb was casting his ballot.

You can read the heated exchange over on the Times Free Press, but the long of the short is that, as Jeremy told me, he didn’t ask for police protection as the headline implies, but he did ask the police to do a couple of drive-by patrols on their routes.  He’s concerned about his mental health and the safety of his family, so better safe than sorry.  Jeff responded to the accusation in the article:

Holcomb said he’s not crazy, and he never threatened Jones. He said Jones called the sheriff’s office that night to make a report and create an anti-Holcomb paper trail. He suspected Jones was still acting on behalf of Hill and State Sen. Jeff Mullis, who donated to Hill and helped him find a campaign manager. Mullis did not return a call seeking comment.

“This is all a ploy he’s put up to by the political group,” Holcomb said. “Their whole job is to try to cause me political harm so I won’t run against (Hill) and beat him.”

Holcomb lost the run-off by 16 points.  He doesn’t appear to take the loss very well and seems to want to pass blame on to others as to the reason for not being picked by voters.  Jones said that he was/is not under the direction of Senator Jeff Mullis or State Representative-elect Dewayne Hill (there wasn’t a Democrat who qualified, so no general election contest).  He also said that he didn’t harass or speak to Holcomb through his loudspeaker as Holcomb accuses him.

As far as I know, this is the first time Jeff Holcomb ran for office.  I was told that Jeff Holcomb ran for sheriff 4 years ago but didn’t make the run-off. Jeremy Jones has ran for office previously.

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