With no consensus candidate, no endorsement from President Donald Trump, and a crowded GOP field led by two members of Congress and a former college football coach, Georgia Republicans are increasingly worried that a race once seen as a prime offensive opportunity is becoming far messier than expected.
But Georgia is also where Trump lost to Joe Biden in 2020, and where his anger at the unwillingness of Georgia Republican leaders to help him “find 11,780 votes” left intraparty scars that have lingered. Efforts to get Trump and top Georgia Republicans to coalesce behind one candidate failed, likely setting the stage for a June 16 runoff. One GOP operative echoed concerns among many in the party, pointing to fears that a “lack of cohesion” on their side might leave their nominee hobbling into the fall.
Collins and Carter have aggressively positioned themselves as Trump-aligned MAGA conservatives, while Dooley has run as the outsider candidate backed by Gov. Brian Kemp, who has clashed with Trump since the 2020 election. Kemp’s endorsement of Dooley followed months of pressure from national Republicans urging the governor to run himself against Ossoff. When Kemp declined, Republicans hoped Trump and the governor might unite behind a single candidate.
Democrats are salivating at the prospect of a gloves-off runoff race. Ossoff, who faces no serious primary opposition, has spent the year raising money, expanding his political operation, and building his statewide profile while Republicans battle among themselves. Ossoff entered the spring with more than $31 million on hand after raising over $14 million in the first quarter alone, making him one of the strongest Senate fundraisers in the country.
As of Friday afternoon, early-voting data appeared to show Democrats with a 12-point turnout advantage over Republicans, signaling an enthusiasm gap that has added to Republican anxieties about the state of the Senate race heading into November. Some of the weakest turnout rates have come from deep-red Northwest Georgia, including the 14th Congressional District once represented by former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who departed Congress after publicly breaking with Trump.
That governor’s race—also likely headed to a runoff—has quickly turned into one of the nastiest governor’s races in the country this year. On the Republican side, Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, who has Trump’s endorsement, is locked in a bitter fight with healthcare executive Rick Jackson, who has poured millions of dollars of his own money into the campaign. The two have spent months attacking each other in television ads and debates, accusing one another of fraud, dishonesty, and ideological disloyalty to the MAGA movement. Polling suggests that race could also advance to a June runoff, potentially keeping Georgia Republicans consumed by intraparty warfare for weeks longer.
Carter has frequently appeared in advertisements invoking Trump and describing himself as a “MAGA warrior.” Carter has also pursued increasingly attention-grabbing gestures aimed at winning favor with Trump’s base, introducing a resolution calling for Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize and legislation authorizing Trump to acquire Greenland under the new name “Red, White and Blueland.”
“If Dooley does make it into the runoff,” Bullock says, “he will owe an awful lot to Brian Kemp, because Kemp recruited him.”
But with Tuesday’s primary likely only the opening round of a longer and increasingly expensive Republican fight, many in the party are privately acknowledging that what once looked like a straightforward opportunity to flip a Senate seat has become far more complicated.
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