The Georgia Republican Senate primary will be settled in a runoff next month after no candidate secured a majority of the vote Tuesday, leaving incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) without a formal challenger for a bit longer.

Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who led the way with about 41% of the vote, and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, who garnered 30% support, were the top two vote-getters and will fight it out for the nomination in the June 16 runoff.

Rep. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) was the odd man out, finishing in third place with 25% of the vote, with about three-fourths of the ballots counted Tuesday night.

Either Collins or Dooley will take on incumbent Ossoff (D-Ga.) in November. 

Ossoff is viewed as one of the most vulnerable Democratic senators by Republicans, who hope to expand their 53-47 Senate majority in the fall midterms.

Collins pitched himself as the best candidate to turn Georgia red in November because of his proven track record.

“You don’t beat Jon Ossoff with no record. You win by having a record of results. I’ve shown that you can go to Washington and put Georgians first,” Collins said at his victory party.

Dooley, who coached for 30 years, celebrated his outsider status at his election party.

“They counted us out. They said that Mike Collins had this race in the bag. … We proved them dead wrong tonight, and we got all the momentum,” Dooley cheered.

“Beating Jon Ossoff is not going to be done by another DC politician,” Dooley said

Pre-primary polling showed the Ossoff running narrowly ahead of all three Republican contenders.

President Trump made no endorsement in the contest, and term-limited Republican Gov. Brian Kemp – who rebuffed overtures to run against Ossoff himself –  threw his support behind Dooley, a family friend and the son of legendary University of Georgia coach Vince Dooley.

“My goal here is to win our Senate seat back,” Kemp said at a Dooley campaign event last week. “We need a political outsider to do that.”

“As a football coach for 30 years, I can spot these ‘me first’ guys a mile away, and we gotta get rid of them,” Dooley said in his first campaign ad of the race. “And as your senator, I’ll never forget that you’re the boss. And they need accountability: term limits, ban stock trading, end these government shutdowns. 

“And up there, I’m gonna work with President Trump, but for you,” the 57-year-old pledged. 

Meanwhile, Collins and Carter jockeyed to position themselves as the most MAGA-aligned candidates from Capitol Hill. 

“Georgia needs the right Republican to take on Jon Ossoff. Someone who’s delivered, has the conservative record to prove it, and had President Trump’s back when it mattered most,” Collins, 58, wrote on X last week. “Send this trucker to the US Senate and I’ll deliver.” 

Collins, dubbed the “Memer of Congress” for his prolific and creative use of his official X account, has touted his work to crack down on criminal migrants and synthetic opioids via the Laken Riley Act and TRANQ Act, respectively, and voiced support for Trump’s sweeping election integrity bill, the SAVE America Act.

Carter, who has served in Congress since 2015, hit Collins on the campaign trail over a House Ethics Committee probe into whether he abused taxpayer funds by hiring the girlfriend of his former chief of staff, now his campaign adviser, for work that the woman allegedly did not perform.

“If taxpayers can’t trust you to properly steward their money, how can they trust you to be a US senator?” Carter, 68, asked Collins during a recent debate.

Georgia voters haven’t elected a Republican to the Senate since 2016, when the late Johnny Isakson defeated Democrat Jim Barksdale.  

Trump won the Peach State by 2.2 percentage points in 2024, after losing it to Joe Biden by just 0.2 percentage points four years earlier.

With Post wires