With Election Day fast approaching, U.S. Senate candidate Jim Barksdale believes he is closing in on incumbent Johnny Isakson.

Barksdale, the Democrat nominee, criss-crossed Georgia last week as the campaign winds down. Most polls have Barksdale, an investment firm manager, trailing the popular second-term Republican by double digits.

But Barksdale points out his team has been narrowing the lead, which was 21 points in a Quinnipiac University poll on Sept. 23 and was down to 14 points in a poll released Friday. Allen Buckley is the Libertarian candidate,

“We’ve been closing the gap,” Barksdale said Monday afternoon. “We’ve had a tremendous amount of get out the vote effort. We’ll be ready.”

On the trail, Barksdale said jobs and income have been the top issues.

“People are working too many jobs for not enough money,” he said. “They can’t afford to send their kids to college. The middle class has been squeezed.

“It’s time for someone to go to Washington to represent the people and not large corporations,” Barksdale added. “The trickle down economy is not working. People have been left behind.”

Barksdale also said veterans are concerned about funding for their care and issues, and he also spoke out against the notion of privatizing Social Security.

He also supports the Affordable Care Act, known more commonly as Obamacare, though he espoused making changes to it.

Isakson, however, noted the Department of Health and Human Services’ acknowledgement that ACA health insurance premiums in Georgia are going up an average of 25 percent. Additionally, Isakson said, only one company will be offering coverage under the ACA in 96 counties.

“My fears have become a reality after premiums have increased every year to an unaffordable price for many families who were promised exactly the opposite,” Isakson said in a statement. “Unless this fatally flawed law is rolled back, Obamacare will soon become a government-run monopoly and Georgians and all Americans will continue to be without what they were promised: a choice of doctors and health plans, access to quality and affordable care, and accountability and transparency.”

But Barksdale said the ACA has provided coverage to millions more Georgians. Since the ACA’s inception, more than 541,000 Georgians have enrolled in health care plans through the Health Insurance Marketplace.

“It has helped people out,” he said. “It has reduced the cost for Georgians.”

Barksdale said the ACA has not delivered all that was needed. For instance, he said, it has not reduced the cost of prescription drugs and the public option has been removed.

“That needs to be reinserted,” he said.

Barksdale also said the government needs to crack down harder on those who take advantage of the system, using the price hikes in the Epipen as an example.

Barksdale also criticized the Senate’s refusal to hold hearings on U.S. Supreme Court nominee Merrick Garland. President Obama offered Garland, the chief judge of the D.C. Circuit for the U.S. Court of Appeals, as his choice to replace the late Justice Antonin Scalia. Scalia died in February, creating a vacancy on the nine-member bench.

Garland was confirmed to his current seat by a 76-23 Senate vote in 1997.

“I find it unbelievable that someone can be elected to office and say they are going uphold the Constitution and they took that oath and they don’t act on a nominee,” Barksdale said. “On both sides of the aisle, they felt he was an excellent nominee. The Republican party had decided to obstruct the Obama administration since he was first elected.”

Editor Pat Donahue can be reached at (229) 226-2400 ext. 1806.