Georgia Rep. Collins will challenge Ossoff in high-profile Senate matchup

Rep. Mike Collins, Georgia's Republican U.S. Senate nominee, speaks to supporters on May 19 in Jackson, Ga. Jason Allen/Getty Images hide caption

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ATLANTA — President Trump suffered a rare primary endorsement defeat Tuesday as Georgia Republicans narrowly voted for billionaire healthcare executive Rick Jackson to be the party's nominee for governor.

But the president's preferred pick to challenge incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, Rep. Mike Collins, handily won his two-candidate runoff, according to a race call by The Associated Press. The Collins-Ossoff matchup will be closely watched nationally as the major political parties vie for control of the Senate.

For the governor's office, Jackson beat GOP Lt. Gov. Burt Jones, and will face Democratic former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms in November.

Trump endorsed Jones, a longtime ally, in August 2025 , but did not wade into the Senate race officially until after early voting ended for the runoff, issuing a lengthy post backing Collins in the early hours Sunday morning.

Tuesday's runoff results also mark a resounding political defeat for term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp, who declined to run in the Senate race and instead poured significant financial and political capital into backing former football coach Derek Dooley in that contest.

In Trump's endorsement post of Collins, he dinged Dooley as someone who did not have strong ties to Georgia or to his policies, and for correctly saying that Trump lost Georgia's 2020 presidential election.

"I don't know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person," Trump wrote. "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!"

One argument that Dooley supporters made was that the political outsider would be the more electable candidate in a purple state like Georgia in a year that is likely harder for Republicans at the ballot box.

Georgia Republican gubernatorial nominee Rick Jackson takes the stage at his primary election night watch party on May 19 in Atlanta. Elijah Nouvelage/Getty Images hide caption

In the other race, Kemp issued a last-minute endorsement of Jones over the more moderate Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive who blanketed the state with more than $100 million of his own money in a bid to convince Republicans that he was the best standard bearer for both Trump and Kemp.

Jones was heavily involved in efforts to overturn the 2020 election in Georgia, and as leader of the state Senate helped shepherd through some controversial legislation in recent years around everything from abortion restrictions to voting law changes.

Kemp's argument that Trump's endorsed candidate would not be right for the Senate but would be right to be the next governor — and voters going the opposite direction — highlights a continued rift in the Republican Party over how much the president should control the party's future.

In 2026 primary contests, Trump's endorsements have come earlier than in past cycles and have skewed toward backing safe incumbents or clearing the field for preferred candidates in open races. The last-minute intercession for Collins is an outlier, similar to his endorsement of Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton a week before his runoff victory over Sen. John Cornyn.

The endorsement of Jones is yet another speed bump for Trump after a belated push for Iowa Rep. Randy Feenstra was not enough for him to win that state's governor primary and as South Carolina Lt. Gov. Pamela Evette faces a tough runoff for governor next week.