Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) secured a victory over Derek Dooley in Tuesday’s Republican runoff election for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat.
NBC News projected Collins’ victory a little over an hour after the polls closed, with less than 45 percent of votes counted. By the time the outlet called the race for Collins, he had 53.3 percent of the votes to Dooley’s 46.7 percent.
Decision Desk HQ also made an early call for Trump-backed Collins, who represents Georgia’s 10th congressional district and owns a trucking company, over Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach, lawyer, and first-time candidate, backed by Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA).
Collins and Dooley competed in the runoff after no candidate received more than 50 percent of the votes during the May 19 primary election.
Collins led the primary at 40.5 percent, followed by Dooley at 30.2 percent, and Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) at 25.1 percent. Two other candidates did not reach over four percent. In Georgia, if no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes, the top two candidates advance to a runoff.
Polling leading up to the primary consistently showed Collins leading his competitors. Closer to election day, polling showed Dooley surpassing Carter as the candidate, and his establishment backers dumped funding into massive advertising campaigns.
Collins will now face incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) in November, a far-leftist who has been dubbed the “most vulnerable” Democrat up for reelection but is also widely believed to harbor ambitions to run for the presidency in 2028. The Georgia Senate race is expected to be extremely tight and could even determine which party holds the majority during the second half of President Donald Trump’s second term.
RealClear Polling’s average ahead of Tuesday showed Collins presenting the greatest challenge to Ossoff, with the incumbent projected to lead by a narrow 2.8 points in the general election. Polling averages projected Ossoff leading Dooley by 6.7 points.
President Donald Trump did not make an endorsement in the race until the final hour, but he ultimately tossed his support to “MAGA Mike Collins” and praised him for being a “Highly Respected Congressman who has been with me from the very beginning.”
Trump also remarked: “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!” the 45th and 47th president said.
Trump did give an early endorsement to Lt. Gov. Burt Jones (R) in the Georgia gubernatorial race, who is also competing in a runoff on Tuesday against billionaire Rick Jackson after the pair beat out Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr in the Republican primary.
Katherine Hamilton is a political reporter for Breitbart News. You can follow her on X @thekat_hamilton.
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