“Y’all did good for me,” said Jones, the elected CEO of DeKalb County, who received 40 percent of votes in the statewide primary.
Jones faces Jim Martin, who received 34 percent of Georgia votes, in a runoff Aug. 5. The winner will oppose Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Moultrie, in the Nov. 4 election.
“Southwest Georgia is extremely important to my election. Southwest Georgia is extremely important to Georgia and Georgia’s politics,” Jones said.
He mentioned issues of energy independence, fiscal responsibility and the creation of infrastructure, and was critical of the federal No Child Left Behind laws in 10-minute remarks in front of Albany’s marble-columned governmental building.
“The ‘leave no child behind’ legislation left the states behind, the money behind and the child behind,” Jones said.
“We need bold leadership in Georgia, and I believe this platform, that’s resonated all over Southwest Georgia, is a good conservative message to take Georgia back and make Georgia a blue state again.”
In metro Atlanta’s DeKalb County, where Jones won about 42 percent of 70,000 Democratic votes Tuesday, “we’re capturing methane gas off our landfill and turning it into energy,” he said. “We’re turning trash into cash.”
Jones said he shared presidential candidate Barack Obama’s “vision for a better America,” but stopped short of saying he had the Illinois senator’s support.
“Sen. Obama has made it very clear that he is not endorsing anyone in this primary,” Jones said. “But I make it very clear that I support Sen. Obama.
“I’m glad he did what John Kerry and Al Gore did not do, and that was write off the South and say we don’t need Georgia to win. Obama said something totally different, that was we need Georgia, we can make Georgia a blue state.”
Encouraging voters to return to the Aug. 5 primary runoff is a “fine tuning” for Jones’ Nov. 4 contest with Chambliss, he said.
“There’s a clear difference,” Jones said. Chambliss “voted against health care expansions for young children right here in Albany, right here in Dougherty County, because of his politics with President Bush. I would not have turned down health care insurance for children.”
Jones thanked Albany Commissioner Tommie Postell, Phoebe Putney Memorial Hospital Health Coordinator Darrell Sabbs and Democratic county chair Constance Burkes.
“The difference in him to me is he’s using a style of campaigning which is forgotten — the door-to-door,” said Sabbs, a resident of Sumter County where Jones has visited several times.
Jones received about 48 percent of votes in Sumter and 56 percent in Lee County, which had no local Democratic elections. In Worth, he trailed Martin, with only about 31 percent of Democratic votes.
Martin announced Thursday that he received endorsements from two of his three former opponents, Dale Cardwell and Rand Knight.
Postell said he and Hamp Smith have been working with Jones for several months “to get his name out in Southwest Georgia.”
Voter turnout of only 38.6 percent in Dougherty Tuesday Postell attributed to “apathy” by voters presented with “a lot of choices” or who believe they already know who will win.
“I was really hoping we were going to avoid a runoff,” Burkes said.