{"id":23009,"date":"2026-05-20T03:17:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:17:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/mike-collins-and-derek-dooley-head-to-runoff-in-georgia-senate-gop-race\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T03:17:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T03:17:11","slug":"mike-collins-and-derek-dooley-head-to-runoff-in-georgia-senate-gop-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/mike-collins-and-derek-dooley-head-to-runoff-in-georgia-senate-gop-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Mike Collins and Derek Dooley head to runoff in Georgia Senate GOP race"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p>Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley advanced to a runoff in Georgia\u2019s Republican Senate primary, dragging out a bitter contest to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.<\/p>\n<p>The result plunges Republicans into another monthlong intraparty fight. Meanwhile, Ossoff, who already has a massive name ID <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/live-updates\/2026\/04\/15\/congress\/ossoff-fundraising-georgia-senate-00875566\" target=\"_blank\">and $31 million and counting in his warchest<\/a>, can continue building and conserving his resources in the marquee race.<\/p>\n<p>It also sets up a proxy battle between President Donald Trump, who holds Collins as a close ally, and Georgia\u2019s GOP Gov. Brian Kemp, who backed Dooley for the nomination. Dooley, who was polling in third place ahead of Election Day, had a late burst of momentum after casting himself as a political outsider and leaning on his ties to Kemp.<\/p>\n<p>The outcome now intensifies pressure on Trump, who didn\u2019t support a candidate in the primary, to intervene. The president\u2019s endorsement in a runoff \u2014 where the electorate tends to be highly engaged voters \u2014 could prove decisive.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley advanced to a runoff in Georgia\u2019s Republican Senate primary, dragging out a bitter contest to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November. The result plunges Republicans into another monthlong intraparty fight. Meanwhile, Ossoff, who already has a massive name ID and $31 million and counting [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-23009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics"],"amp_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23009"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23009\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluelightnews.com\/category\/politics\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}