Two Republican candidates - an outspoken U.S. congressman and an ex-college football coach with no prior elective office - emerged from a crowded primary field to advance to a runoff in Georgia’s Republican primary for the U.S. Senate.
With about 80% of ballots counted, Mike Collins had the lead at 40.5% and Derek Dooley trailed with 30.0%, producing a matchup set for June 16. The outcome eliminated Representative Buddy Carter, a candidate who invested heavily in building statewide name recognition but failed to reach the runoff threshold.
The Republican nominee who prevails in the June runoff will face Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in November. Ossoff, 39, is a former media executive and the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state that the 2024 presidential vote went to Donald Trump. Observers note that the result in this seat could be decisive for whether Democrats have a pathway to take control of the Senate, where Republicans currently hold a 53-47 majority.
Collins, 58, is a two-term member of the U.S. House of Representatives who ran a campaign emphasizing a combative, high-profile persona similar to that of President Donald Trump. His campaign also highlighted his sponsorship of the Laken Riley Act, legislation named after a Georgia nursing student who was killed by a man charged with being in the country illegally.
Dooley, 57, is both a lawyer and a former university football coach. He positioned himself as an outsider to Washington politics and received the endorsement of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who had been viewed early on as a potential Senate nominee but opted not to run.
Polls have shown Ossoff ahead of both Collins and Dooley in the general election projections. Republican candidates in the state face headwinds from President Trump’s declining approval ratings and the broader economic context of rising prices for gasoline and other staples, factors that analysts say could weigh on the GOP’s prospects.
Trump carried Georgia with nearly 51% of the vote in the previous presidential election. Independent political analysts now classify the state as leaning Democratic. Ossoff originally won his Senate seat by defeating a Trump-aligned incumbent, David Perdue, in a runoff election in 2021.
Election context: The extended Republican primary and the June 16 runoff will determine who challenges Senator Ossoff in a race that carries implications for control of the U.S. Senate. The intraparty contest also narrows a field that included a spending-heavy campaign by Representative Buddy Carter.