During a Friday evening gathering in Dalton, former President Donald Trump voiced his backing for congressional representative Mike Collins, who is running for a U.S. Senate seat, and for Rick Jackson, who has entered the race for governor.

During a speech lasting approximately 90 minutes, Trump targeted Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff and disputed the legitimacy of Ossoff's 2020 electoral win, asserting that Ossoff had actually lost the race and that the outcome had been manipulated in his favour — a claim he offered as the sole explanation for how Ossoff came to hold a Senate seat. He repeated the assertion that the 2020 Georgia result had gone in his favour.

Investigators conducting recounts and independent audits of Georgia's 2020 balloting found no substantiated indication that fraud had occurred on a scale broad enough to alter the outcome.

During the same appearance, Trump directed criticism at Ossoff's stance on immigration while putting forward his own record of tightening border enforcement. A small group carrying signs opposed to immigration enforcement stepped in briefly, drawing the rally to a temporary pause. Attendees responded with jeers as the group of demonstrators were led from the venue by security personnel.

Trump also put forward a justification for the military strikes on Iran, arguing that the action had been needed to stop the country from acquiring nuclear weapons capability. Collins has voiced support for the war, while Ossoff has taken the opposite position, arguing that the conflict raised consumer prices and cost American lives without neutralising Iran's nuclear programme.

More of Trump's remarks at the rally centred on the Senate race than on the gubernatorial contest, with Jackson and Collins each brought to the podium at different points. Standing beside Trump, Collins told those gathered that both the senator-elect and the chamber as a whole would back him without reservation.

During a stage introduction for Jackson, Trump made comments about Keisha Lance Bottoms — the former Atlanta mayor now running as the Democratic candidate for governor — asserting that she had left the city in a worse state during her tenure.

Invoking personal memories of a childhood spent in foster care, Jackson kept his remarks brief, contending that no president had done more for children in the foster system who had experienced abuse or neglect than the candidate he had come to endorse. Trump, speaking at the event, pointed to job figures and stock market performance as evidence of his administration's economic record.

Bastian Johnston, who was present at the rally ahead of its start, noted that financial pressures and the rising price of everyday goods are among the factors that bring people out to vote, adding that the burden on ordinary working Americans needs to be spelled out more plainly to the public.

A joint appearance by Bottoms and Ossoff is scheduled for Cobb County on Saturday. Polling data gathered in recent weeks put Trump's approval at roughly 30 percent, a figure both contenders have worked to attach to the other side.