by Niles Francis, Georgia Recorder, [This article first appeared in the Georgia Recorder, republished with permission]

August 11, 2025

Stop me if you’ve heard this story before.

Gov. Brian Kemp needs a U.S. Senate candidate. He promises to work with the White House toward a candidate both he and President Donald Trump can get behind. The governor then decides to go his own route and throws his full support behind a little-known candidate. His pick frustrates the White House and divides the Republican base ahead of a pivotal race.

By backing Derek Dooley for U.S. Senate, the governor is again finding himself on a collision course with the White House as he hedges his bets on a blank-slate candidate.

Kemp, who was his party’s dream challenger to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff before ultimately declining to run, had committed to working with Trump’s team toward finding a consensus candidate. The governor told donors to keep their “powder dry” and made several trips to Washington to discuss the race with the White House and Senate Republicans.

But over the summer, word began spreading that Dooley was weighing a bid with Kemp’s support. A former coach at Tennessee and the son of Georgia coaching giant Vince Dooley, Derek Dooley began lining up a team that included many of the governor’s top advisers.

Kemp even called other candidates to tell them that he would not be supporting their campaigns as he works to boost his longtime friend. While he was able to nudge Insurance Commissioner John King out of the race, his involvement appears to have not only “p—-d off” the president’s inner circle but emboldened other candidates: U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter (R-St. Simons Island) said he wasn’t going anywhere, and U.S. Rep. Mike Collins (R-Jackson) announced his own bid the next week.

Both Collins and Carter are competing for the MAGA lane in a primary almost certain to be dominated by Trump and his supporters, while Dooley works to prove himself as a reliable conservative who can bridge the divide between the party’s two factions.

It’s an eerily familiar situation for Kemp, who found himself in a nearly identical situation in 2019 after the resignation of longtime U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson. Despite being urged by the White House and conservative activists to appoint a more Trump-aligned figure, Kemp went his own route and appointed businesswoman and Republican donor Kelly Loeffler.

Loeffler tried to make inroads with the president’s supporters, but doubts about her conservative credentials — and tenuous ties to Georgia — seemed to follow her wherever she went. And U.S. Rep. Doug Collins (not related to Mike Collins), who was Trump’s preferred choice for the coveted appointment, campaigned for the seat anyway.

The two spent most of the campaign trying to out-right one another, driving up each other’s unfavorable ratings and dividing the Republican base in the process. Loeffler ultimately finished second in the top-two primary but was then defeated by now-Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) after failing to get the party back on a winning message.

This time around, Kemp is again hedging his bets on a blank-slate Senate candidate with thin (or questionable) ties to the Peach State. Dooley’s father might be an icon in Athens, but Derek Dooley has spent the majority of his coaching career outside of Georgia.

And like Loeffler, Dooley is sure to face questions about his voting trail. He hasn’t voted in many recent elections or Republican primaries and declined to declare his affiliation in states that have party registration. His only known political footprint is a $5,500 contribution to Kemp’s campaign.

His opponents wasted no time going on the attack. Collins’ campaign mocked Dooley by sharing a video of the Volunteers’ controversial loss to the Louisiana Tigers in 2010, when the Tigers were awarded an untimed down at the end of regulation after a too-many-men penalty against Dooley’s defense.

Collins’ team shared a separate ad taking aim at Dooley with a simple but potent line of attack: “Never fights. Never wins. Never Trump.”

Carter also thinks Dooley is ill-equipped to take on the first-term Ossoff. “This is serious stuff now — I don’t want to hear about, you know, we’re just going to put this to a popularity contest. That’s not what this is,” Carter said of his rival. “You got to have somebody who can go toe to toe with this kid, and I’m that person who can go toe to toe with him.”

Democrats also plan to make Dooley’s coaching career the centerpiece of their attacks, with party chair Charlie Bailey quickly labeling him as a “failed and fired former Tennessee football coach.”

“We’ll see what’s harder for Dooley — answering for a Trump bill that strips health care for 750,000 Georgians, or remembering which SEC team to root for,” Bailey said in a statement.

So as Kemp places all his eggs in the Dooley basket, he must keep in mind that he is doing so with a lot less capital than he had when he appointed Loeffler. With just a year left in his term and no (immediate) plans to run for office again soon, he has a lot less political leverage to wield over his legislative allies, many of whom are supporting Collins and are keenly aware of which direction their party is going.

What’s clear is that this Republican infighting in what had traditionally been a red state will play right into Democrats’ hands. As the Ossoff campaign asked in an email:

“Didn’t Republicans learn their lesson the last time they tried to oust a Democratic Senator in Georgia?”

Georgia Recorder is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Georgia Recorder maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jill Nolin for questions: info@georgiarecorder.com.