Georgia Republicans on Tuesday chose Rep. Mike Collins as their Senate nominee to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a race that could help determine control of the upper chamber.
With half of the results reported, Collins leads former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley with 53.3% of the vote. Decision Desk HQ called the race at 8:05p.m. local time.
Collins and Dooley advanced to a runoff on May 22 after no candidate passed the 50% threshold, earning 40.5% and 30.2% of the vote, respectively.
The contest presented another test between the power of the MAGA movement and the Republican establishment, with President Donald Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp once again at odds.
Over the weekend, Trump weighed into the race for the first time, throwing his political clout behind Collins.
“It is my Great Honor to endorse ‘MAGA’ Mike Collins, a Highly Respected Congressman who has been with me from the very beginning, and is running for the United States Senate in Georgia, a very special place to me, and where we just had a BIG Presidential Election Win with the Most Votes Received by any single Candidate in Georgia’s History, for any Election,” Trump wrote on Monday morning. “Mike is strongly supported by the most Highly Respected MAGA Patriots in Georgia and beyond, and many Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate — He is a WARRIOR and WINNER!”
Trump first endorsed Collins on Saturday.
“Mike has to beat a Republican Opponent before he gets to Ossoff,” Trump said on Saturday in his first post endorsing Collins. “I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person. 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!”
Governor Kemp backed Dooley, who said the former football coach was “our one and only opportunity to knock Jon Ossoff off.”
Marty and I are proud to support @DerekDooleyGA. Hardworking Georgians are ready to fire Jon Ossoff and send a conservative fighter who will put Georgians first and bring a new kind of leadership to Washington, D.C.
Let’s get out the vote for Derek tomorrow! pic.twitter.com/B8v3QA8ubP
— Brian Kemp (@BrianKempGA) June 15, 2026
Kemp, a popular two-term governor, did not get his way. Trump, widely seen as the kingmaker of Republican politics, has consistently prevailed in Republican primaries, with few exceptions.
Last month, Trump made another last-minute intervention in a GOP Senate runoff, endorsing Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, who defeated Senator John Cornyn in a landslide margin. The president also knocked off longtime Republican Congressman Thomas Massie in Kentucky and a handful of Indiana state lawmakers who bucked his redistricting push.
Whether his hand-picked candidate will prevail in November presents a different question. Ossoff, the only incumbent Democratic senator in a state that voted for Trump, holds an early advantage going into November, according to most polls.
Holding Ossoff’s seat would go a long way in Democratic efforts to flip the 53-47 Republican-controlled Senate.
“After nearly a year-long, brutally messy audition to win over the White House, Trump puppets Mike Collins and Derek Dooley have made themselves both unelectable and terminally inseparable from the toxic president,” the Ossoff campaign posted on X.