Trump Wins One Georgia Runoff and Loses the Other
A split night in Georgia: Collins wins the Senate nomination and faces Ossoff, while Trump and Kemp's governor pick, Burt Jones, loses to Rick Jackson.
Georgia handed Donald Trump a split decision on Tuesday. The president’s pick for the U.S. Senate cruised to the Republican nomination, but his choice for governor lost, a rare rebuke in a primary season Trump has otherwise dominated.
Representative Mike Collins, whom Trump endorsed days ago, won his runoff comfortably and will face Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in November in what is shaping up as one of the most closely watched races in the country. Ossoff is the only Democratic senator defending a seat in a state Trump carried in 2024, which makes Georgia central to control of the chamber.
The governor’s race went the other way. Republicans narrowly chose Rick Jackson, a billionaire healthcare executive, over Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones by 53% to 47%, the Associated Press projected after late returns. Jones had a rare double endorsement, from both Trump and Governor Brian Kemp, and still lost, an outcome that punctures the idea that either man’s backing is decisive in a Republican primary. Jackson will meet former Atlanta mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, a Democrat, in the fall.
For Trump, the night was a study in the limits of endorsements. He can still clear a field for a favoured candidate, as he did for Collins, but his word did not carry Jones over the line, even paired with Kemp’s. The two outcomes, a loyal Senate nominee and a governor candidate the party chose on its own, will both be read for signals about the mood of Georgia Republicans.
The split fits a pattern that has defined Trump’s grip on the party: near-total command of the nominations he cares most about, paired with the occasional reminder that primary voters still have minds of their own. The same night, his preferred candidate prevailed in an Alabama Senate runoff, underscoring that Jones’s loss was the exception rather than the rule.
Both Georgia contests will be among the most expensive and closely watched in the country this autumn. Ossoff is the Democrats’ single most exposed incumbent, and the governor’s mansion is open; control of the Senate and of a premier swing state could turn on how Tuesday’s winners now perform.
The general election now sets up two marquee contests in a perennial battleground: Collins against Ossoff for the Senate, and Jackson against Bottoms for the governor’s mansion. Georgia decided the last two presidential elections by the narrowest of margins. On Tuesday its Republican voters signalled they are not simply doing as they are told.
