AJC: Kemp's Latest Gamble: A Blank-Slate Senate Candidate with Big Stakes
August 5, 2025
“Senior Republicans are girding for the possibility of another Trump-Kemp proxy fight to erupt over this Senate seat.”
Republicans in Georgia are worried that failed and fired former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley’s Senate campaign launch will make the already messy GOP Senate primary “combustible,” according to new reporting from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Read for yourself:
Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp’s latest gamble: A blank-slate Senate candidate with big stakes
Greg Bluestein | August 5, 2025
- Despite intense lobbying from Kemp for a unity GOP candidate, including at least two in-person meetings with Trump, the president has so far withheld his endorsement.
- And some question why Kemp is bypassing two contenders already in the race — U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins — for an unproven political novice.
- “As much as I personally like Brian Kemp,” said Ed Henderson, a longtime leader in the Rabun County GOP, “I’m going to take a pass on Derek Dooley until I at least meet him and have a chance to talk to him.”
- Unlike the last Senate race, where football icon Herschel Walker steamrolled competition on his way to the GOP nomination, this one is shaping up to be a wide-open and unpredictable fight that could open a new Republican rift in Georgia.
- […] Republicans worry even more about a flashback to 2019, when the governor’s selection of Loeffler turbocharged a feud with Trump that has defined Georgia GOP politics much of this decade — and helped Ossoff and Warnock flip GOP seats.
- […] senior Republicans are girding for the possibility of another Trump-Kemp proxy fight to erupt over this Senate seat.
- “Georgia voters don’t know Dooley and many are scratching their heads, asking themselves why Gov. Kemp took this path,” [conservative commentator Martha Zoller] said.
- If anything, the run-up to Dooley’s announcement showed just how combustible this race is shaping up to be.
- “A nasty primary could drain all these candidates of crucial resources they will need for an expensive general election,” said Nathan Price, a University of North Georgia political scientist.
- “This race is not a time for us to play experimental games with name recognition — it’s time for us to put forth our best and brightest,” [Courtney Kramer, a strategist with deep ties to the GOP grassroots] said. “I’m not sure if Dooley brings that to the table just yet.”
