Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) pressed the Republican Party to coalesce behind former football coach Derek Dooley’s Senate campaign, framing him as the best candidate to flip the Georgia seat red.
Polling indicates another candidate in the crowded field of GOP contenders, Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA), is leading Dooley by a significant margin ahead of the May 19 Republican primary. But Kemp has remained firmly behind Dooley, telling Politico in an interview published Tuesday that he is seeking to convince President Donald Trump to back the candidate.
“I think we need something different at the top of the ticket: a political outsider that’s a happy warrior,” Kemp said. “That’s kind of a new breed. A Republican bringing a new dynamic, new vigor, new energy. And I think Derek’s going to provide that for people.”
The Peach State’s senate race is one of the most closely watched campaigns in the country, as both parties vie to expand margins of power in the upper chamber. Democrats flipped the seat blue in 2021 by a razor-thin margin.
Over five years later, Republicans see an opportunity to win it back, though the party remains divided on which candidate in a crowded field of GOP contenders stands the best chance of defeating Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA). As of early April, Ossoff is favored to win in November, according to the Cook Political Report.
Kemp has emerged as Dooley’s most powerful advocate, even as polling suggests two primary rivals, Collins and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA), hold better chances of ousting Ossoff. An Emerson College poll released last month showed that in the 2026 general election, both Carter and Collins would hold a higher percentage of support from voters than Dooley. And ahead of the primary, Collins holds a 20-point lead over Dooley, according to the poll.
Kemp previously warned GOP donors that Collins and Carter might not hold the coalition-building power needed to defeat a Democrat in the general election.
“To defeat a Democratic incumbent who has and will have unlimited resources in a midterm election, another congressman from the heavy, heavy Republican district with a congressional voting record isn’t going to work,” he said last year. “I know and respect both Congressmen Carter and Collins. This is not an attack on them, it’s just the way that I feel. Ossoff, as you all know, will have hundreds of millions of dollars to define anybody’s voting record in the worst possible light.”
Kemp said in his latest interview that he is looking to convince Trump to make an endorsement in the race, warning the GOP that with a divided party, it will be an uphill battle to beat Ossoff, an “incumbent senator that’s raised a lot of money.”
“Georgia’s a tough state,” Kemp said. “I mean, it’s a generic 52-48. I’ve talked to President Trump a lot about this race, trying to build a consensus around one person, which we were never able to do. Not just because of him, but I think a lot of the other political leaders didn’t want to engage like some of them had done in the last cycle.
“I’m not sticking my hand in saying, ‘Hey, everything’s going to be great in November.’ This is going to be a tough cycle for us. We’ve got to have candidates that really stay focused on the issues that people care about.”
MTG PREDICTS DEMOCRAT JON OSSOFF WILL WIN GEORGIA SENATE RACE
Kemp had a shaky relationship with Trump for years, due to the president’s ire that the governor questioned his claim that the 2020 election was rigged. Although they still share differences on issues such as tariffs, the two have since buried the hatchet with Kemp telling Politico that he believes it is important to ditch “purity tests” and embrace differences in a “big-tent party.”
“I think for Republicans, we cannot be a party of one or a party of one ideal,” he said. “I think there are a lot of folks that get shortsighted and go, ‘You weren’t with the president on this one issue, or you weren’t with whoever on this one issue,’ and we got to give people a little grace. The Democrats are good at doing that. People have different principles. I can disagree with somebody as long as I know that they’re disagreeing on principle, and then we’ll move on and work together on the next issue.”
