Trump and Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp back opposing candidates in GOP Senate primary

[00:00:00]President Trump's power over the Republican Party will be tested tonight in Georgia's Senate primary runoff.

[00:00:06]Trump's pick, Representative Mike Collins, is set to square off against former college football coach Derrick Dooley, who is endorsed by Georgia's Governor Brian Kemp.

[00:00:14]Here to preview this key Republican battle is The Hill's campaign reporter Caroline Vakil. So, Caroline, this rivalry between Governor Kemp and President Trump goes back several years.

[00:00:25]Explain the genesis of that and how they ended up on opposite sides of this race.

[00:00:29]>> Sure. Well, it has been a long time coming to this point, as you mentioned.

[00:00:32]So, essentially, the the two men actually were sort of close in the beginning in the sense that uh President Trump endorsed Kemp when he first ran for governor in 2018, which really helped him get over the Republican primary. But fast forward to 2020, President Trump loses the state of Georgia in the elections, and he um essentially tries to have state officials, you know, overturn those election results, and a number of officials, including Kemp, have rebuffed those efforts. And so, there was a bit of friction there because uh these Georgia elections officials didn't want to go along with Trump's antics. Uh and now that's, you know, sort of been lingering in some sense since they buried the hatchet uh in 2024, but there was a moment during the 2022 primaries where Trump endorsed a challenger to Kemp. Kemp was able to defeat him. He uh he Trump endorsed you several other candidates, you know, against some of these statewide elected officials. They beat them as well. Um and so, I think it's, you know, they're burying the hatchet, but of course it's uh in some ways not unusual to see them on opposite sides of this Georgia Senate runoff.

[00:01:34]>> Yeah, so Kemp and Dooley have been friends for a long time, and he's been Kemp has been campaigning for Dooley all along. Then President Trump comes in at the very last minute and gets in for Collins. Explain that dynamic.

[00:01:45]>> Sure. So, uh there was a hope among Republicans early on in this primary that there was going to be a consensus candidate, uh and that did not happen.

[00:01:54]They wanted Kemp and Trump to be on on the same side. Kemp eventually came out as you mentioned for Derrick Dooley who's a former football coach. Uh he's known Dooley a long time. Dooley is also uh sort of uh known for his father who is a University of Georgia football coach. Um and so from there backing his horse in the race, there was Mike Collins. Um and Collins on paper had always looked like sort of the Trump favorite. He had sort of you know taken the lead on the Lake and Riley Act, uh you know, key immigration legislation that Trump signed into law. Um you know, was kind of always more Trump aligned in that sense. Um but there was sort of questions around Trump whether or not Trump was even going to be uh you know, weighing in on this race. Um and so it's not surprising in some ways that Trump had you know, got involved, but it's the timing that really shocked a lot of Republicans.

[00:02:41]>> Could the outcome of this race impact Kemp's political future? A lot of people have talked about him as a potential 2028 presidential contender.

[00:02:49]>> I think in some ways that it'll be interesting to see. I mean certainly this is one candidate where Kemp had early on got involved in this race. So in some ways it is sort of a test of his political power. But um I don't think there's any sort of anxiety that Republicans feel that you know, either Kemp or Trump will be able to be on the same team after the runoff happens unlike in previous elections when there was a lot of friction there.

[00:03:13]>> What do you think it says about the current state of the Republican Party where you have potential contender for 2028 going against the sitting president in a power struggle that many see kind of playing into the future of the Republican Party.

[00:03:28]>> Sure. I mean I think you know, some I think some Republicans don't see it as much as a proxy battle, but of course it's hard to deny the fact that Kemp and Trump are on opposite sides of this you know, sort of race right now. I think what signals is that there's sort of different avenues for the future of the Republican Party. There is Trump who is very much about turning out the base giving red meat to those base voters um versus Kemp who is more of this conservative business aligned Republican who you know is palatable for Republicans but is also looking for those independents. You see that in terms of the kind of candidates they're backing and that's where the gamble that Republicans are going to be making heading into November.

[00:04:04]>> So the winner of this race will take on incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff. This is a state that President Trump won back in 2024. How strong of a candidate is Ossoff thought to be?

[00:04:15]>> He is going to be a very strong candidate. He has been he has stacked up a war chest. Republicans know just from the get-go between these two candidates that he's going to be tough to beat.

[00:04:26]But you know they look there's sort of the two paths that we just talked about.

[00:04:30]There's the Mike Collins path where you try to you know rile up and get as much of your base turn out in Georgia which is seen as more of a lean Republican state but you know has to be under the right circumstances with the right candidates.

[00:04:42]Or do you go with Derek Dooley who is you know not going to be a flamethrower but you know is going to be conservative obviously on paper. Does he able to sort of cross over to those independent votes? That's sort of the calculus here that we're looking at.

[00:04:56]>> One concern I imagine might be for Republicans is that no matter who your candidate is they're kind of kind of be limping into the general election.

[00:05:02]Either you went against the popular current sitting governor or the popular president of your party and and that could be I don't know assume a little bit of damage to that candidate as they go into this race against Ossoff.

[00:05:15]>> I think the bigger I mean certainly I do think that if if Collins loses I think that would be quite notable. He is seen as a favorite going into Tuesday.

[00:05:24]And so if Dooley were to win I think that would be notable. It has been particular though that even though the two candidates have kind of been going back and forth a little bit it hasn't been as divisive of a primary as we could have expected. Buddy Carter who is another congressman who was running for this seat last this past May you know he was really going hard at Mike Collins and so that was a bit more of a bitter tension. Uh we're not seeing the sort of same ugly messy fight that we're seeing between Collins and Dooley.

[00:05:51]So, that might actually be beneficial for Republicans heading into November.

[00:05:55]>> All right. Be really interesting to see those results come in tonight. For now, we'll leave it that. Caroline Leavitt, thanks so much for your insight.

[00:06:01]>> Thanks for having me.