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By Mandy Taheri
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One of Republicans’ top pickup opportunities is heating up as voting is underway in Georgia’s primary. While the state still leans right, the GOP has yet to rally around a candidate in either race, giving Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff time to prepare for reelection while the open governor’s seat continues to fuel intraparty divisions.
“Georgia is still more Republican than Democratic. However...there are conditions under which Democrats can win,” Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, told Newsweek in a Friday email.
John Feehery, partner at EFB Advocacy, described the state to Newsweek as a sort of political “puzzle.” President Donald Trump carried Georgia by about 2.2 percentage points in the 2024 presidential election, after Joe Biden won the state by roughly 0.2 points in 2020. Trump won Georgia by about 5 points in 2016, while Mitt Romney won it by roughly 8 points in 2012 and John McCain by about 5 points in 2008.
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The state currently has two Democratic U.S. senators and a Republican governor, highlighting its increasingly competitive and mixed political landscape.
Georgia's Senatorial Race
Ossoff was first elected to the Senate in January 2021 after defeating Republican incumbent David Perdue in a closely watched runoff election that helped hand Democrats control of the chamber. His victory, alongside that of fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock, marked a historic shift in Georgia’s political landscape, long considered a Republican stronghold.
He is now running for reelection, in one of the few Democratic seats being defended in states that Trump won in 2024. Republicans control the Senate by a 53-47 margin, and Georgia is viewed as a must-win state for Democrats if they want to reclaim a Senate majority, given the difficult map they face in the midterm.
Trump has not yet endorsed a candidate in the race, leaving Georgia Republicans without a clear standard-bearer in one of the party’s opportunities to unseat a Democratic senator this year.
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“Georgia is one of those Senate races where no one candidate has a significant ideological or political advantage. That's likely why Trump hasn't endorsed because he could work well with any of the three of the Republicans,” Brent Buchanan, founder and CEO of Cygnal polling firm, told Newsweek.
Representative Mike Collins, seen by some as the most conservative candidate, has narrowly led the GOP field over Representative Buddy Carter and Derek Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach, in recent polls. However, many Republican primary voters are still undecided and could sway the race any direction.
GOP Senator Thom Tillis of North Carolina told Punchbowl News about the race: "If the most conservative person comes out of the primary, there’s the worst matchup in the general, particularly in a year where we have headwinds. If you cut that image, then you’re necessarily going to alienate unaffiliated soccer moms and whoever else may be trending away from us anyway.”
Georgia Democratic Party Chair Charlie Bailey told Newsweek, in part: “No matter which candidates become the GOP nominees in these races, we will hold them accountable and keep them from advancing more of Trump’s MAGA agenda in DC and in Georgia.”
Historically, the party in the White House loses seats in the midterms, something Bullock noted, adding: “The magnitude of losses by the president’s party is greater when the president’s job approval is low and voter concern about the economy is high. Both conditions apply today.”
Alex Patton, principal and senior government affairs strategist at Ozean Media**,** echoed similar sentiments: “Trump is currently a drag on down ballot races. The economy, inflation, gas prices, wars, Epstein files, and his dismal approval ratings - are all leading to a toxic political environment for the GOP.”
Trump’s approval rating is around 38 percent, with a 58 percent disapproval rating, according to the New York Times aggregate poll. Trump is the "second-most-unpopular president out of the past nine midterms,” forecaster and statistician Nate Silver wrote in a mid-April post on the Silver Bulletin.
The Silver Bulletin noted that Trump is more unpopular now than he was in 2018 during his first term, when Democrats gained 40 House seats in the midterms, two years after he was elected to office. Democrats are looking to flip seats this November, as Republicans hold a 217-214 majority in the House and a narrow majority in the Senate.
However, Buchanan said: “We don't show Trump image slipping that much. The direction of the country definitely is, but he's very steady around 43 percent favorability in our national data.”
What Polling and Fundraising Shows
“Even right leaning polling shops show Senator Ossoff with a sizable lead,” Patton told Newsweek.
An Atlanta Journal-Constitution (AJC) poll found Collins leading the pack for the Republican primary, with 22 percent. Carter garnered 13 percent and Dooley 11 percent. More than half of the voters, 54 percent, were undecided. The poll of 1,000 likely Georgia Republican primary voters was conducted April 18-26 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
In the general election, an April poll from NetChoice and Echelon Insights, a Republican-aligned polling firm, found Ossoff ahead of Collins by 7 points and Carter by 9 points in potential head-to-head matchups. It did not ask about a potential matchup between Ossoff and Dooley, who is backed by Kemp.
“Brian Kemp is very popular and so you have to imagine he will have some coattails, but I have no idea who prevails in the GOP primary. It doesn’t seem that vitriolic though which should bode well for unity once the votes are counted,” Feehery added.
The survey questioned 377 likely Georgia voters April 3-9 and carries a margin of error of plus or minus 6.5 percentage points.
An Emerson College Polling/Nexstar Media survey conducted February 28-March 2 among 1,000 likely voters also showed Ossoff leading each major Republican contender tested. That poll found Ossoff ahead of Dooley by 8 points (49 percent to 41 percent), Collins by 5 points (48 percent to 43 percent), and 3 points ahead of Carter (47 percent to 44 percent). The survey had a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.
Overall, RealClearPolitics' poll average shows Collins as the front-runner in the primary by 13 points, with 29 percent, Carter with 16 and Dooley with 11.5.
“The GOP nomination will almost certainly extend into a runoff which will delay identification of Ossoff’s challenger by another month. During runoffs, attacks tend to become more personal and more vicious. This makes it harder for the party to reunite around the winner,” Bullock said.
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Ossoff also holds a major fundraising advantage over the unsettled Republican field. He raised more than $14 million in the first quarter of 2026 and entered April with more than $31 million in cash on hand, according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings.
Feehery recognized this, saying, “Ossoff has lots of money but has largely been an invisible senator, making him vulnerable to a well-organized and disciplined challenge.”
National Republicans are expected to pour more money into Georgia once the party has a nominee. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top GOP-aligned Senate super PAC, has already announced plans to spend $44 million in the state as Republicans target Ossoff’s seat.
A spokesperson for Ossoff's campaign told Newsweek in an email: "Georgia is a battleground state and Senator Ossoff is already facing millions of dollars of Republican spending against him. The Ossoff campaign will continue to build unstoppable momentum and work to earn every vote across the state of Georgia."
Bernard Tamas, a professor of political science at Valdosta State University in southern Georgia, told Newsweek in an email: “There are six months before the election, so there is still time for Ossoff's campaign to stumble or run into unforeseen issues that can pull his level of support down.
“One wild card is that Georgia requires a candidate to receive more than 50% of the vote in order to win on Election Day. Otherwise, the top two candidates have to go into a runoff election. When dealing with narrow margins, a third-party candidate could potentially win enough votes in a close race between Ossoff and the Republican nominee to force a runoff, which could give the Republican candidate a second chance. However, the last times that a US Senate runoff was held in Georgia (in 2020 and 2022), the Democratic candidate won the seat.”
Georgia’s Gubernatorial Race
The governor’s race is also beginning to take shape as another high-stakes test of the state’s political direction as Kemp is term-limited. The state has not elected a Democrat to the governor’s office since Roy Barnes was elected in 1999.
The Republican field is filled with candidates: Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, Rick Jackson, Attorney General Chris Carr, Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and Thomas Williams, among others.
Trump last August endorsed Jones, who has continued to release ads referencing the president's support, saying: “This primary election is very simple—there is one authentic conservative who has fought for President Trump and others who have fought against him at every turn. I believe political candidates should tell voters the truth, not simply what is politically convenient. There is a sharp contrast between the candidates in this race and that contrast will be made very clear by the time Georgia voters head to the polls.”
Bullock noted the intraparty politics may split voters in November, saying "the bitterness between the two leaders [Jones and Jackson] is extraordinary for this stage in the process. A consequence for November is that some supporters of whichever of these men loses may refuse to support the nominee. Some might be so alienated that they vote for the Democrat while others would vote for the Libertarian or not register a preference."
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However, Buchanan suggested Republicans will fare well in the race: “As for the governor race, Keisha Lance Bottoms is the Democratic nominee, any of the guys running in the GOP primary will beat her. Remember when Atlanta literally burned under her 'leadership'?"
On Friday, former President Joe Biden backed Democratic former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms: "Those same qualities that made her a great mayor made her invaluable to our administration—smart, focused, get things done," he said. "Georgia, she's ready. She's been ready."
Rashad Taylor, Bottoms' campaign manager, told Newsweek: “Our campaign is building momentum at the right time, as voters know that Keisha is the strongest candidate to defeat whatever Trump Republican emerges from the GOP primary and win the governorship for Democrats this November. But we’re not going to rest. We’re continuing to engage directly with voters across the state and share Keisha’s vision to lower costs, expand access to affordable health care, and invest in Georgians’ education.”
A new AJC poll shows Republicans in a tight primary race, with Jackson and Jones neck-and-neck with 27 percent and 25 percent, respectively. Raffensperger has the support of about 14 percent, Carr 3 percent and Williams around 1 percent. Nearly one-third, 30 percent, are undecided.
The poll of 1,000 likely Georgia Republican primary voters was conducted by University of Georgia’s School of Public and International Affairs on April 18-26 and had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
"With Kemp off the ticket and a large Democratic wave likely emerging nationally, it is unclear which party will win power over the Georgia's governorship this year. It is likely to be a close election," Tamas told Newsweek.
What Happens Next
Early voting is underway in Georgia ahead of the May 19 primary, with voters able to cast early ballots through May 15.
Raffensperger's office said in an April 28 press release that 35,352 Georgians cast their ballots in person on the first day of early voting: “This record-breaking turnout is proof that Georgians trust our election process. My office is in constant coordination with county election officials to ensure early voting continues to run smoothly.”
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