BOSTON — Casey Cagle said rural Georgia and south Georgia could not ask for a better friend as governor if he’s elected to the post.

The state’s lieutenant governor is seeking the Republican nomination to succeed Nathan Deal, whose second term expires in January 2019. Cable visited Thomas County on Wednesday night to greet supporters and continued to espouse his plans if he is elected to the higher office.

“I’m a rural Georgia guy,” said Cagle, a Gainesville native. “I understand what rural Georgia challenges look like.”

Cagle said he wants to create 500,000 new jobs in his first four years if elected governor.

“That’s a big goal,” he said. “But I believe it can happen.”

Pointing to the state’s repeated status as the No. 1 state in the nation in which to do business, Cagle said Georgia is “truly the envy of the nation.” But, he cautioned, not everyone in the state is getting the benefits of the economic prosperity.

“My campaign is a campaign of greater economic prosperity that leaves no one behind,” he said. “We’ve got to grow jobs. We’ve got to grow the kinds of industries we want.”

Currently, 20 percent of the economic development deals are being directed toward rural Georgia and Cagle wants to see that number increase.

“As governor, I can make that happen,” he said.

However, the state needs to improve its infrastructure, particularly its roads and bridges, and Cagle also is pushing to expand broadband service in rural areas through public and private partnerships.

Cable also referred to the college and career academies, which now number 43 in the state, he championed as key in building the workforce for the coming jobs and industries.

“You have to have that workforce, a workforce that is second to none,” he said. “If industry has the workers it needs, then it’s going to grow, it’s going to thrive.”

If elected, he said every student in Georgia will have access to a college and career academy by 2020 and those students, at a minimum, will leave high school with an industry certification in their chosen field.

“We want to make sure we are creating a pipeline through the educational system that is aligned with what industry needs to fill those voids,” he said.

Cagle also said 20 percent of Georgians currently live in poverty, and to help turn that around, future workers will have opportunities for higher-paying jobs through the credentials and certifications they can earn in school. He also called for creating community resource centers within schools to help meet those students’ needs through non-profit organizations.

“We’re going to do more partnering out there,” he said.

He also cited his own upbringing, raised by a single mom in a single-wide trailer.

“If I can do it, everyone can do it,” he said.

Cagle, one of a handful of GOP gubernatorial hopefuls, said he isn’t running against anybody else. The primaries will be held in May, and Republican and Democrat nominees will face each other in November 2018.

“The reality where we sit right now is too many people in campaigns want to tear someone down to make themselves look good,” he said. “‘I’m not running for a job and I’m not running for a title. I’m running to make a difference in the lives of our citizens of our state and make it better than they have it. I believe we have demonstrated that as lieutenant governor and we’re going to be able to demonstrate it as governor.”