In the frenetic weeks leading up to Tuesday’s general election, outside political action committees have spent approximately a quarter of a million dollars on two of Chatham County’s most closely-watched races.
Safer Georgia spent $148,858 in October on fliers and video ads that assail incumbent Chatham County District Attorney Shalena Cook Jones and fellow Democrat Richard Coleman, a first-time candidate who is running for sheriff, campaign finance records show. Contributors to the group include former U.S. Senator Kelly Loeffler, Gov. Brian Kemp’s own PAC, as well as Savannah business leaders William “Bill” Dickinson and Bert Brantley, who is Kemp’s former deputy chief of staff.
Cook Jones’ bid for a second, four-year term as district attorney is being challenged by Republican Andre Pretorius, while Coleman is seeking to unseat incumbent Chatham County Sheriff John Wilcher.
Th Democratic candidates are receiving outside help, too. The PAC affiliated with the progressive Working Families Party spent $100,000 in October for text messaging, digital advertisements and campaign mailers that support Cook Jones and Coleman and lambast their opponents, records show.
TOO MANY ADS? GO AD-FREE
Did You Know?: The ads you see on this site help pay for our website and our work. However, we know some of our readers would rather pay and not see ads. For those users we offer a paid newsletter that contains our articles with no ads.
What You Get: A daily email digest of our articles in full-text with no ads.
The disclosure of this spending comes after 41% of Chatham County’s 238,000 registered voters voted early in person or by absentee ballot as of Wednesday night, according to the Georgia secretary of state’s office. Georgia law requires political action committees to disclose spending by Oct. 25, although it allows a grace period until Nov. 1. Early voting, meanwhile, started Oct. 15.
The spending reflects competing visions about law and order issues in Chatham County. Under state law, candidates are barred from coordinating their campaign activities with the outside PACs.
Most watched races
Behind the presidential race between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump, the state races for district attorney and sheriff have inspired the most vociferous campaigning and debate in Chatham County.
Cook Jones is seeking a second term to advance her “smart-on-crime” agenda, which calls for shifting resources from prosecuting non-violent crimes to trying violent ones. Pretorius, meanwhile, has highlighted many shortcomings of the incumbent during her tenure. She has been sanctioned by a judge and heavily criticized for significant turnover of veteran prosecutors. He is running on a traditional Republican tough on crime agenda.
In the sheriff’s race, Coleman is seeking to unseat Wilcher by arguing that the county needs fresh oversight over its jail, the fifth-largest in the state. The 80-year-old Wilcher suffered a cardiac arrest in June and was hospitalized for months but insists his experience is what Chatham County needs.
In June 2023, Safer Georgia received $140,000 from Kemp’s two state PACs, Hardworking Georgians Action and Hardworking Georgians, Inc., in addition to $25,000 from Loeffler. The PAC first targeted a progressive district attorney in Athens-Clarke County in the spring.
Fundraising and spending ramped up again in October, when Safer Georgia received $50,000 from William “Bill” Dickinson, CEO of slushie chain, Wet Willie’s. It also received $41,000 from the Savannah Area Business Committee, a PAC headed by Savannah Chamber of Commerce CEO Bert Brantley. Another $10,000 came from William Grainger of Grainger Honda and $5,000 came from Samuel McCachern, CEO of Savannah engineering firm Thomas & Hutton.
Ads sling attacks
One of Safer Georgia’s mailers against Coleman said he would be a “train wreck” for the county. The PAC’s video ad against Cook Jones says she is “letting murderers walk free.”
“Citizens are tired of attack ads already,” Cook Jones told The Current in an interview. “My race is simple. I’m just a more qualified candidate, and (Pretorius) is a wealthier candidate, but dollars don’t vote. People do.”
Pretorius responded on Facebook to a text message that said he was “inexperienced and bought” by big business and Republicans.
“I have not collected a dime from the campaign towards my salary. The lies are never ending. Sometimes good people run for office because the person in office has failed the community,” he wrote.
Coleman said he appreciates the Working Families Party support of his candidacy and called the attack ads against him “desperate.”
“I have prided myself on running a clean campaign, being totally respectful to my opponent and his health conditions, while sticking to the issues!” Coleman wrote in a text message to The Current.
From the Working Families Party, Coleman’s digital advertisements show pictures of Sheriff Wilcher with a narrator stating “after 48 years of failed leadership at the Chatham County jail, it’s time for new leadership.”
“The Wilcher campaign is focused on communicating Sheriff Wilcher’s record of fairness and justice for all to the voters of Savannah-Chatham County – not engaging in last minute political attacks,” according to a statement from Wilcher’s campaign.
The Georgia Campaign Finance Commission does not disclose on its website what candidates Safer Georgia is supporting or opposing with its spending. The commission site does so, however, for most other independent committees.
The commission and Safer Georgia could not be reached for comment. The Current verified the PAC’s Chatham-based spending by reviewing mailers, Facebook advertisements and YouTube videos.
The Working Families Party PAC in Georgia received close to $900,000 in 2024, mostly from a Democratic-aligned PAC called the Movement Voter PAC. That Massachusetts-based group’s biggest donor includes Jay Schiede, who has also spent millions to support Kamala Harris’ run for president and Democrats up for election nationwide.
The Current is an independent, in-depth and investigative journalism website for Coastal Georgia.
