Georgia Republicans choose Ossoff challenger in pivotal Senate runoff

Georgia Republicans entered a runoff that doubled as an early stress test for the party’s Senate hopes and for the split between Donald Trump and Brian Kemp. Voters were choosing between Rep. Mike Collins, backed by Trump, and former football coach Derek Dooley, who had Kemp’s support, for the right to challenge Sen. Jon Ossoff.

Ossoff, who won the seat in the 2020 election and took office in 2021, faced no primary opposition and had already built a large campaign war chest for the general election. That left Republicans trying to settle a fight over strategy as much as personality, with the party weighing whether a Trump-aligned nominee or a Kemp-backed contender offered the better path in one of the nation’s most competitive Senate battlegrounds.

The Georgia runoff was part of a broader primary day that also included Alabama and Oklahoma. Georgia and Alabama both require runoff elections when no candidate wins a majority in the primary, and Georgia voters were also deciding the Republican nomination for governor between Rick Jackson and Burt Jones. That race was open because Kemp is term-limited, adding another layer of uncertainty for a party trying to fill statewide offices while defending a Senate seat.

For Republicans, the Senate contest was the clearest national test. Collins represented the base-first argument, with Trump’s endorsement signaling strength with the party’s most loyal primary voters. Dooley embodied the electability case, with Kemp’s backing reflecting a belief that a less polarizing nominee could do better in the Atlanta suburbs and among the suburban Republicans who often decide statewide races in Georgia.

The stakes reached beyond one summer runoff. Georgia remains central to the Republican Party’s effort to reclaim a seat Ossoff captured in the 2020 cycle, and the result was being watched as a gauge of whether the GOP could unify quickly enough to make him vulnerable in November. If Republicans cannot settle their internal fight over loyalty and reach, Ossoff begins the fall with an advantage that money and intraparty discipline could make even harder to overcome.