{"id":7579,"date":"2026-05-18T17:01:35","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:01:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7579"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:01:35","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:01:35","slug":"georgia-republicans-scramble-to-pick-a-candidate-to-take-on-democratic-sen-jon-ossoff","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/siliconvalleymovingpost.com\/?p=7579","title":{"rendered":"Georgia Republicans scramble to pick a candidate to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

By JEFF AMY and BILL BARROW<\/strong><\/p>\n

ACWORTH, Ga. (AP) \u2014 Georgia Rep. Mike Collins, who wants to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November, happily calls himself a warrior for President Donald Trump and his \u201cMake America Great Again\u201d movement.<\/p>\n

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Although it\u2019s a sensible calling card for anyone vying for a Republican nomination these days, even some of his supporters have a few concerns ahead of Tuesday\u2019s primary.<\/p>\n

Gary Waldrep, a local party committee chairman, asked Collins at a recent campaign stop how he was going to win over at least a few of the \u201cmiddle-of-the-road\u201d voters who may have been turned off by Trump.<\/p>\n

The question reflected Republican anxiety about the party\u2019s chances in Georgia, where Democrats have demonstrated strength in recent U.S. Senate elections and Ossoff is no longer considered as easy of a target as he once was.<\/p>\n

\u201cI watch the polls just like everybody else,\u201d Waldrep said. \u201cI know it\u2019s going to be close.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins is competing for the Republican nomination with Rep. Buddy Carter and Derek Dooley, a lawyer and former college football coach who is backed by outgoing Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp. Trump has not endorsed a candidate, raising the likelihood of a June 16 runoff that would burn more time and money before the party can focus on defeating Ossoff.<\/p>\n

If Ossoff loses, Democrats have almost no chance of winning a Senate majority. He\u2019s the only senator from his party running for reelection in a state that Trump won two years ago.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

A familiar Republican challenge<\/h4>\n

Trump carried Georgia in two out of his three campaigns. Republicans control the Atlanta statehouse. But in the last six years, Ossoff and Sen. Raphael Warnock have won a combined three Senate contests, each time defeating a Republican who pledged fealty to Trump.<\/p>\n

For this year\u2019s campaign, Kemp rebuffed Senate Republican leaders\u2019 encouragement to challenge Ossoff and declined to endorse either Collins or Carter. Instead, he recruited Dooley, a childhood family friend who is the son of legendary coach Vince Dooley, and tried to convince Georgia Republicans to take a chance on the first-time candidate.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy goal is here is to win our Senate seat back,\u201d Kemp said Friday as he introduced Dooley at a gun store in Douglasville. \u201cWe need a political outsider to do that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dooley, 57, said in a recent interview that there are few if any policy differences among the candidates, \u201cand so electability is everything.\u201d And in his television advertising, he attempts to split the difference between Trump\u2019s base and the broader electorate.<\/p>\n

\n<\/div>\n

\u201cI\u2019m gonna work with President Trump, but for you,\u201d he tells voters in one spot.<\/p>\n

An unapologetic MAGA congressman<\/h4>\n

Collins, 58, is a two-term House member who owns a trucking company and boasts of a \u201cgrassroots operation out there pounding the pavement across this state.\u201d<\/p>\n

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The second-term House member has the advantage of representing a district east of Atlanta, putting him in the media market of the state\u2019s population center. And he sponsored the Lakin Riley Act, named for a Georgia nursing student killed by a man who was also charged for being in the U.S. illegally. The law, signed by Trump last year, requires that immigrants accused of a range of crimes be held without bond.<\/p>\n

\u201cI have proven that I can deliver for the state of Georgia,\u201d Collins said in Acworth. \u201cI can even do it with bipartisan legislation. And I never compromise my conservative values.\u201d<\/p>\n

Collins also has a brash social media presence has both boosted his identity as a firebrand in Trump\u2019s mold and drawn criticism. Among his most controversial posts was sharing a video in 2024 of University of Mississippi students, nearly all of them white males, taunting a Black woman.<\/p>\n

\u201cOle Miss taking care of business,\u201d Collins wrote.<\/p>\n

One congressman tries to buck history<\/h4>\n

Carter is in his sixth term but represents a Savannah-based district, a less populous corner of Georgia that\u2019s rarely a launching pad for statewide campaigns. He\u2019s pulled back on advertising in the closing weeks before the primary, suggesting that he\u2019s lacking adequate financial support.<\/p>\n

The 68-year-old pharmacist has targeted a House ethics investigation into whether Collins abused taxpayer funds by hiring the girlfriend of his former chief of staff \u2014 now his campaign adviser \u2014 for work that the woman allegedly did not perform.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf taxpayers can\u2019t trust you to properly steward their money, how can they trust you to be a U.S. senator?\u201d Carter asked Collins in a recent debate.<\/p>\n

\u201cBuddy,\u201d Collins shot back, \u201cI can tell through the voice that you know how the polling is going out there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dooley is from \u2018a whole different world\u2019<\/h4>\n

Dooley, meanwhile, is attempting to vault over his more experienced competitors.<\/p>\n

\u201cI come from a whole different world than they come from,\u201d he said. \u201cBoth of those guys represent everything that I\u2019m running against. I want to change how Washington does its business, and I want people up there for the right reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n

Kemp ran through a list of first-term Republican senators who did not hold elected office before, including Ohio\u2019s Bernie Moreno, Montana\u2019s Tim Sheehy and Pennsylvania\u2019s Dave McCormick.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you look around the country where Republicans have been successful beating Democratic incumbents, it has been political outsiders that have been victorious,\u201d Kemp said.<\/p>\n

The point, Dooley said, is that \u201cyou\u2019ve got to have somebody that\u2019s going to stay on offense\u201d without having a record to defend.<\/p>\n

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\u201cIt comes down to who can beat Jon Ossoff,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Barrow reported from Douglasville and Atlanta.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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