Trump-Backed Mike Collins Prevails over Kemp-Backed Candidate in Georgia Primary Runoff
President Trump notched another key primary win on Tuesday as GOP Representative Mike Collins, his preferred candidate, advanced in the Georgia Senate primary runoff over Derek Dooley, who had received the endorsement of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp.
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Collins will take on incumbent Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff (D.) in the November general election. The swing state Senate race is widely believed to represent one of Republicans’ best pickup opportunities in the upcoming midterm elections. The Cook Political Report currently rates the race “Leans Democrat.”
Collins, a two-term congressman, and Dooley, a political newcomer and former college football coach, faced off in a runoff election on Tuesday after having finished as the top two candidates in the Republican primary on May 19, when no candidate had received a majority of the vote. Collins, who received Trump’s endorsement just days ahead of the runoff, had already garnered 40 percent of the vote to Dooley’s 30 percent in the primary last month, without Trump’s support.
The president’s endorsement came so late in the runoff race that early voting had already concluded in the state.
In issuing his last-minute endorsement of Collins on Sunday, Trump celebrated the GOP congressman as a “MAGA warrior” who “has been with me from the very beginning.”
“A very successful Businessman prior to becoming a distinguished U.S. Congressman, Mike has brilliantly served his Community, during a career loaded with accolades and wins, always fighting tirelessly for our America First Agenda,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social. “As your next Senator, Mike will continue to work hard to Grow the Economy, Cut Taxes and Regulations, Promote MADE IN THE U.S.A., Champion American Energy DOMINANCE, Strengthen our incredible Military/Veterans, Advance Election Integrity, Keep our Border SECURE, Stop Migrant Crime, Murderers, and other Criminals from illegally entering our Country, Ensure LAW AND ORDER, and Protect our always under siege Second Amendment.”
“I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person,” Trump added. “Unfortunately, he has lived outside of Georgia for most of his life, didn’t vote in 2020 or 2016, and said that I lost Georgia in 2020 when, in actuality, the facts have now proven that I won by a lot!”
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Kemp, who has found himself at odds with Trump since the 2020 presidential election, had supported Dooley as a Republicans’ “best chance of beating Jon Ossoff.” The Georgia governor, who was on the receiving end of the president’s ire after he refused to overturn Georgia’s 2020 election results, previously defeated a Trump-backed candidate in his own gubernatorial primary race in 2022.
Collins, for his part, has endorsed Trump’s false claims that the 2020 election was illegitimate, calling the race “legitimately rigged.”
Still, despite their many areas of agreement, Trump seemed unlikely to endorse Collins for much of the race, and the eleventh hour endorsement came as a surprise to many, including Collins’s own aides, according to Politico, after the president expressed concern over Collins’s strict commitment to the pro-life cause during a private meeting last month.
Collins had said in 2022 that he always has been and “always will be 100 percent pro-life, period. No exceptions.”
While the stance was noncontroversial in Collins’s deep-red district, Trump apparently voiced concerns about the pro-life congressman’s ability to appeal to the broader audience needed to win a Senate race in the battleground state, which hasn’t elected a Republican senator in a decade.
However, more recently, Collins said on the campaign trail that he supports “Georgia’s heartbeat law, which includes exceptions, 100 percent,” according to Politico.
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