Trump-Backed Collins Wins Georgia Senate Runoff

Georgia Republicans chose Rep. Mike Collins to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November after Collins defeated former football coach Derek Dooley in Tuesday’s Senate runoff. President Trump’s endorsement arrived only days before the vote.

Collins received 55.5 percent of the vote to Dooley’s 44.4 percent once all 159 counties reported, according to unofficial figures from the Georgia secretary of state’s office. Dooley had carried the endorsement of Gov. Brian Kemp. In his victory remarks Collins thanked both Dooley and Kemp and called for party unity against Ossoff.

The same night produced a clearer setback for Trump in the Republican race for governor. Self-funded healthcare executive Rick Jackson defeated Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, the candidate Trump had backed since the earlier primary round. Jackson spent more than $100 million of his own money. Trump later posted that Jackson had “very successfully campaigned on being ‘TRUMP.’”

Collins, a second-term House member, has aligned with Trump on election claims from 2020 and other issues. Ossoff described Collins as a “notorious bigot, antisemite and extremist” and pointed to an ongoing House Ethics Committee review of Collins’s office. Collins called Ossoff a far-left liberal weak on immigration and crime.

Tuesday’s results left Trump’s broader influence in Georgia primaries mixed: his Senate picks advanced in Alabama and Oklahoma as well, yet the governor outcome and the narrow timing of his Collins endorsement limited any sweeping narrative of dominance heading into the fall campaign.