The friendship between the Republican Party and businesses is complicated.

The party’s apparent presidential nominee, Donald Trump berates the influence of corporations in politics, but he himself is a real estate mogul.

In Georgia’s 3rd Congressional District, which runs from the south of Atlanta to the outskirts of Columbus, seven Republican candidates are vying for the congressional seat left vacant by U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland’s retirement.

Five of the seven contenders in the race are businessmen, and the candidates are divided on what’s best for the district, which has prosperous areas with pockets of unemployment throughout.

If you ask longtime Republican and Fayette County resident Greg Dunn, he’ll tell you the rural 3rd Congressional District is a good place to live.

“We don’t want people living here sitting on street corners smoking dope,” said Dunn. “We don’t live like that here. We want people to come here, live here, work here, enjoy life here, and if they like it, stay here, and if they don’t like it, leave.”

Dunn is skeptical of change, which has at times happened quickly in the district.

A new factory or corporate headquarters can redirect the fate of a small rural town.

Tax Breaks Create Jobs And Change

The potential pace of change is something Drew Ferguson, one of the candidates in the race, knows well.

Ten years ago, Ferguson, as chairman of the West Point Development Authority, helped attract a Kia car manufacturing plant to the city of West Point.

He said the small town had been suffering after textile plants moved overseas.

“We for the first time experienced generational poverty. We saw families beginning to break up, and West Point, that very special place that I grew up loving, kind of fell apart,” said Ferguson.

Now Ferguson, a dentist and former mayor of West Point, says the area is booming thanks to the plant and the tax breaks that brought it there.

Tax breaks also helped bring Pinewood Film Studios to Fayette County on the other end of the 3rd District.

Developer Jim Pace, another candidate in the race, is credited with making that happen.

“I was at Akins Feed and Seed in Barnesville, Georgia, and a young man came up to me and said, ‘Hey, weren’t you involved in bringing Pinewood to Atlanta’ He said ‘my wife now has the best job she’s ever had,’” Pace recalled.

But not everyone in Fayette County is happy with the economic change.

Resident Harold Bost says the studios got too big of a tax break.

“What’s happening out there now they’ve got a lot of … some of the lower income folks coming in, and that takes the county down,” Bost said.

Just one superhero blockbuster at the studio employed thousands and created more than $100 million in economic impact, according to the state of Georgia.

Voters May Choose Autonomy Over Jobs

State Sen. Mike Crane, another candidate for the congressional seat, is all about lower taxes.

But favoritism for certain industries like manufacturing or movies, not so much.

“My opponents who seem to just sunbathe in the glory of these giant tax breaks for specific industries, they’ll just perpetuate this broken system, and I don’t think people want any part of that,” said Crane.

It’s what has voters so frustrated this election year, he said, and it hurts his construction company and other small businesses.

Robert Sanders, a political science professor at the University of West Georgia in Carrollton, said, “this is why on the national level the phenomenon of Bernie Sanders and Donald Trump is so incredible.”

Both candidates, he said, speak for voters who think corporations have too much influence.

And Crane’s approach is likely to play well this year, especially in the conservative 3rd District that Robert Sanders calls home.

“We do respect the businesses but at the same time the appeal is that, ‘I’m not beholden to anyone, nobody tells us what to do,’” he said, “It’s a great fantasy and it’s a great way to live.”

It’s what won Crane the support of people like Bost at a recent candidate forum.

“He stands for all the right things, and, if somebody doesn’t like the right things, the heck with them. I don’t care if they come to Georgia or not. It’s up to them,” said Bost.

But Robert Sanders says taking that uncompromising approach to Washington may not help the economy in the 3rd District.

“It’s still a little sketchy out here. This is a mostly rural area and there are a lot of people unemployed or underemployed,” he said.

But the 3rd District might be willing to make that sacrifice in exchange for a bit more autonomy.

Because there are seven candidates in the race, it could easily go to a runoff after the May 24 primary.

The other candidates in the race are educator Arnall “Rod” Thomas; businessmen Chip Flanegan and Richard Mix; and Samuel Anders, a former sergeant in the U.S. Air Force.

Elly Yu contributed to this story.