Georgia Republicans choose governor and Senate nominees in runoff vote

Georgia Republicans went to the polls Tuesday to settle their nominees for governor and the U.S. Senate in a runoff that doubled as a power test inside the state party. The Senate contest matched U.S. Rep. Mike Collins against former college football coach Derek Dooley, while the governor’s race paired Lt. Gov. Burt Jones with businessman Rick Jackson.

The winners were set to face two Democrats with statewide name recognition in November: Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only incumbent Senate Democrat up for reelection in a state Donald Trump carried in 2024, and former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in the governor’s race. That made the GOP runoffs more than a pair of intraparty contests. They became a real-time measure of whether Georgia Republicans were still being organized by Trump, by Gov. Brian Kemp, or by a fragile coalition between the two.

Trump lined up behind Collins in the Senate race and Jones in the governor’s race. Kemp backed Dooley against Collins and also supported Jones, setting up a split that exposed the party’s internal fault lines even as both men tried to claim the mantle of electability. Trump also reminded voters of his endorsement of Jones and held a tele-rally for Collins, underscoring how aggressively he tried to shape the outcome.

Georgia’s runoff rules required a candidate to clear 50 percent of the vote, sending the top two finishers back to the ballot 28 days later if no one did. Early voting for the June 16 runoff ran from June 8 through June 12, and state officials said more than 128,000 people had already cast ballots by June 9. The early turnout suggested strong interest in a state where more than 2 million voters participated in the May 19 primary and where the voting-age population is about 7.8 million.

The scale matters because Georgia remains one of the marquee battlegrounds of the 2026 midterms. The Senate race in particular will help determine whether Republicans can capitalize on Trump’s 2024 win and hold a state that has become central to both parties’ national maps. The runoff results were poised to show not only who won the nominations, but which faction of Georgia Republicans has the stronger claim on the party’s future.