Republicans Collins, Dooley advance to primary runoff in hopes of facing US Senator Ossoff in November

Their projected advance to a June 16 runoff ‌eliminated a third contender, Representative Buddy Carter, who had spent heavily to gain statewide name recognition. * The eventual Republican nominee faces an uphill battle against Ossoff, a 39-year-old former media executive whose political fate could determine whether Democrats have a chance of taking control of the Senate, where ⁠Republicans currently have ​a 53-47 seat majority.

A hardline Republican congressman and a former college football coach who has never held elective office advanced to a runoff on ‌Tuesday in Georgia's U.S. Senate Republican primary election, extending a messy intra-party battle to determine who will face Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in the November general election. * U.S. Representative Mike Collins led former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley 40.5%-30% ‌with 80% of the vote counted, according to the Associated Press. Their projected advance to a June 16 runoff ‌eliminated a third contender, Representative Buddy Carter, who had spent heavily to gain statewide name recognition.

* The eventual Republican nominee faces an uphill battle against Ossoff, a 39-year-old former media executive whose political fate could determine whether Democrats have a chance of taking control of the Senate, where ⁠Republicans currently have ​a 53-47 seat majority. * ⁠Collins, a 58-year-old two-term member of the House of Representatives, positioned himself as the consistent party frontrunner by striking a brash, outspoken persona akin ⁠to President Donald Trump and touting his role as sponsor of the Laken Riley Act, named for a Georgia nursing student killed ​by a man charged with being in the U.S. illegally.

* Dooley, 57, who is a lawyer as ⁠well as a former football coach, has run as an alternative to politics in Washington with the endorsement of two-term Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. ⁠Kemp was ​seen as an early favorite for Senate nominee but declined the opportunity. * Ossoff, the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump carried in 2024, has been polling ahead of both Collins and Dooley, who ⁠like other Republican candidates in the state must contend with Trump's sagging approval numbers in a climate of rising prices ⁠for gasoline and other staples.

* ⁠Trump won Georgia with nearly 51% of the vote. But independent political analysts now rate the state as leaning Democratic. Ossoff first won election to the Senate by ‌defeating Trump-aligned Republican incumbent ‌David Perdue in a runoff election in 2021.