.jpg?branch=production "Georgia Republicans Brace for Bruising Senate Runoff in Must-Win Battleground")
Not too long ago, Republicans viewed the race to unseat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia as perhaps their best pickup opportunity of the 2026 midterms. But as the state’s voters head to the polls on Tuesday, the confidence on the Republican side has tempered, and an already heated primary is poised to give way to a costly and potentially bruising runoff.
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.
The contest has taken on enormous importance in the national fight for control of Congress. Georgia is the only state Trump won in 2024 where a Democratic senator is up for re-election this cycle. Republicans, who hold a narrow Senate majority, view defeating Ossoff as critical insurance as they defend vulnerable incumbents elsewhere.
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.
“It’s in the runoff where the attacks become more personal and more vicious,” Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, tells TIME.
Under Georgia law, a candidate must win more than 50% of the vote to avoid a runoff. Public polling has consistently shown Rep. Mike Collins leading the field, though nowhere near that threshold. An April Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found Collins at 22%, followed by Rep. Buddy Carter at roughly 13% and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley at 11%, with more than half of Republican voters undecided.
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.
So far, the primary has been relatively civil. But Bullock notes that candidates expecting a runoff often avoid fully unloading on one another in the first round to make it easier to woo the supporters from eliminated rivals.
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.
“The state's a bit pinker than it is violet,” Bullock says of Georgia. “But Ossoff’s campaign funding, and just his political skills have impressed even some Republicans. There's no cohesion on the Republican side.”
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.
Bullock says one reason none of the Republican Senate candidates have broken through is because of another high-profile statewide contest. “All the attention is going into the Republican gubernatorial primary, which is just sucking all the oxygen out,” he says.
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.
Much like in Texas, where a May 26 Republican runoff for Senate remains hotly contested as Trump remains neutral, the President’s refusal to endorse in the Georgia Senate race has become an issue itself in the race. All three leading candidates have spent months jockeying for Trump’s support and emphasizing their alignment with his agenda. Collins, a close Trump ally in Congress who introduced the Laken Riley Act that Trump signed last January, appeared at a rally in Georgia with the President earlier this year.
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.”
Dooley, the son of legendary University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, has leaned heavily on his relationship with Kemp and his status as a political outsider. That strategy may prove helpful: A recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll found 85% of likely GOP primary voters approved of Kemp’s job as governor, and at least one recent poll places Dooley firmly in second place. His candidacy appears to have gained more traction in recent weeks as Kemp has intensified his involvement, holding rallies across the state and appearing in television ads. “Send Derek Dooley to the U.S. Senate,” Kemp says in a new ad from his PAC. “He's a political outsider who will work with President Trump and will fight insider trading, and he'll cut taxes, so more money stays where it belongs, in your pocket.”
“If Dooley does make it into the runoff,” Bullock says, “he will owe an awful lot to Brian Kemp, because Kemp recruited him.”
Despite the prospects of the Senate primary turning uglier as it drags on for another month, Republicans insist Georgia remains winnable in a favorable national environment. Trump carried the state in 2024, and GOP officials argue Ossoff remains vulnerable despite his financial advantage.
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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