A low Trump approval rating but huge war chest as midterms near
Although low inflation and unemployment are both bright spots in the economy, voters aren’t feeling it. That could hurt Republicans in the midterms.
The midterm election for Georgia’s 10th congressional district just got a new surprise candidate.
Ryan Millsap, the movie executive and real estate investor, announced his candidacy as a “MAGA warrior” and political outsider, on his way to Congress to “smash the status quo” and “fight back against the radical left and RINOs (Republicans in Name Only)” in the House of Representatives.
Millsap is the former chairman and CEO of Blackhall Studios, now known as Shadowbox Studios, where projects like “Venom,” “Blockers” and “Loki” were filmed in Georgia.
The Hollywood-adjacent businessman enters the race during qualifying week, the last chance to be officially on the ballot in Georgia for the May primaries. He’s taking on Houston Gaines, a popular GOP state representative who has been on a fast track to political leadership. Millsap will also have to address claims made in 2024 that he shared racist and anti-semitic messages over text despite working closely with Black and Jewish communities in Atlanta.
In Millsap’s campaign launch, he says one of the events in his life that charged his political ambition is an attack by “ANTIFA” on his business. He says he “stood up to ANTIFA and the radical left when they tried to burn down everything he built.”
USA Today reached out to Millsap’s campaign to clarify these claims, and did not receive a response as of 1 p.m. on March 5.
Here’s what we know happened.
Blackhall Group expands property near ‘Cop City’
Conflict between Blackhall Group and environmentalists began years ago when the company wanted to expand their studios in DeKalb County.
A QuitClaim Deed was signed in 2021 for a land exchange between Blackhall and DeKalb, which included land that was part of Weelaunee People’s Park.
The deal was the center of a lawsuit in 2021, where opponents said the deal was illegal and would block access to a public park. Other legal challenges, including a “stop work order,” slowed development as activists said Blackhall failed to get necessary permits to remove trees from the land previously part of the park. The land was also next to an area that would later be called “Cop City.”
A $90 million, 85-acre property was developed as the Atlanta Public Safety Training Center, to allow “the South’s largest city with the largest police and fire departments” to work on training while boosting recruitment and retention, according to the Atlanta Police Foundation.
The project was met by widespread criticism from those that believe the facility would militarize the police and threaten marginalized people. They were joined by environmentalists, some with the group “Defend the Atlanta Forest,” who worried the facility would damage the tree canopy and natural environment of Atlanta, colloquially called “The City in the Trees.” Protests, called “Stop Cop City,” escalated, eventually leading to violence with police and the arrest of 61 people in a RICO case in September 2023.
Charges ranged from racketeering to arson to money laundering to domestic terrorism in the “Cop City” cases, and many are still being decided in the courts.
Escalating protests result in Blackhall property damage
In Summer 2022, Blackhall Group contractors clashed with protestors directly, resulting in property damage.
“I sent some contractors out to do some work on private property. They were going out to do some maintenance and clean up in preparation for development out there,” Millsap told WAGA in 2022. “When the police officers got there, about 40 people came out of the woods. They started throwing rocks and bottles and cans at the police, and at us, and at the cars. They jumped up on the excavator while one of my guys was operating it and smashed all the windows with rocks.”
Millsap said the protestors burned a Ram 5500 pickup truck, damaged an excavator and spray painted threats on the sidewalk, including “if this park isn’t safe, then Millsap isn’t either.”
A report in 2024 found that total damage brought by activists during the protests reached $10 million. This figure was across multiple stakeholders including The Blackhall Group and Birmingham-based construction firm Brasfield & Gorrie.
“These people are real,” Millsap said at the time. “I think they are a credible threat.”
Were the protestors part of ‘Antifa’?
In 2025, the Trump Administration designated “Antifa,” or Anti-fascists, as a domestic terror organization. The White House called the group a “militarist, anarchist enterprise that explicitly calls for the overthrow of the United States Government, law enforcement authorities, and our system of law.”
But the definition of what “Antifa” really is remains up for debate, primarily because it doesn’t have a centralized organizational body.
According to the Armed Conflict Location & Event Data Project (ACLED), a non-profit organization, Antifa is not a group, but rather an ideology.
“Just as there is no broad antifa organization, there isn’t necessarily a specific shared ideology among those who label themselves as anti-fascists. While many associate the antifa label with socialists, communists or anarchists, not all who use the term identify with any of these ideologies,” the ACLED said. “Likewise, while some anti-fascists subscribe to more radical militant activities, the label has grown increasingly mainstream over the past decade and therefore cuts across a wider range of ideologies.”
Some of the protestors were charged with domestic terrorism, however the Office of the Attorney General did not designate all the protestors as “Antifa” in their 2023 indictment.
Instead, the AG said “Defend the Atlanta Forest (one group involved in the protests) frequently uses symbols associated with anarchist movements, to include but not limited to, the capital letter ‘A’ surrounded by a circle, a raised clenched fist, Antifa flags and symbols associated with anti-fascist movements,” and other iconography.
“Defend the Atlanta Forest posts many of its invitations to join the movement on various social media outlets such as Twitter and Telegram,” the Attorney General said in the indictment. “Knowing that their posts are followed and re-posted by other decentralized extremist groups, most prominently Antifa, many violent anarchists and extremists travel from out of state to join the Defend the Atlanta Forest movement.”
“Antifa” was not defined in the indictment.
Irene Wright is the Atlanta Connect reporter with USA Today’s Deep South Connect team. Find her on X @IreneEWright or email her at ismith@usatodayco.com.
