First attack ad churns Georgia's uncertain Republican Senate primarynewsline24

The GOP Senate primary in Georgia is heating up one month before voters head to the polls, with Rep. Buddy Carter launching the first attack ad of the race, former football coach Derek Dooley hitting the airwaves and Rep. Mike Collins touting his fundraising.

The three Republicans are vying to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, a top GOP target as the party looks to expand its 53-47 majority in the Senate. With three major candidates dividing the May 19 primary vote, and President Donald Trump so far declining to pick a favorite, the race is expected to head to a June 16 runoff.

So far, Carter’s campaign has dominated the airwaves, spending $5.5 million in ads through the primary, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact. Dooley has spent $519,000 while Collins has spent $170,000, largely on digital ads.

Carter’s latest ad, which launched on Monday, knocks Collins as he faces an Ethics Committee investigation for allegedly misusing congressional funds by paying his former chief of staff for campaign work and by employing that aide’s girlfriend, who did not do work for the office.

The Office of Congressional Conduct issued a report late last year saying “there is substantial reason to believe Rep. Collins used congressional resources for unofficial or otherwise unauthorized purposes.” Collins spokesman Corbin Keown told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution that the ethics complaint is “bogus,” calling it “a sad attempt to derail one of Georgia’s most effective conservative legislators in Congress.”

But Carter is looking to leverage the issue in the race, launching a new attack against Collins that will air across the state and is backed by $2 million worth of airtime, according to the Carter campaign.

“While Trump and Buddy Carter were protecting our wallets, Mike Collins was abusing them. Collins is under federal investigation for misusing taxpayer funds to benefit himself and his cronies. We just can’t trust or afford Mike Collins,” a narrator says in the ad.

Keown, the Collins spokesman, said in a statement to NBC News that Carter’s ad is “a sad attempt to salvage one of the worst return on investment campaigns Georgia’s ever seen.” Keown also suggested the “MAGA base” is rejecting Carter’s campaign.

“The only people winning from his ad are his Yankee consultants and Jon Ossoff,” Keown said.

Meanwhile, Dooley is airing his first ads, casting himself as a “conservative outsider.” A former University of Tennessee football coach, Dooley’s father was also a legendary coach at the University of Georgia.

“As a football coach for 30 years, I can spot these ‘me first’ guys a mile away, and we gotta get rid of them,” Dooley says in his first TV ad of the race. “And as your senator, I’ll never forget that you’re the boss. And they need accountability: term limits, ban stock trading, end these government shutdowns. And up there, I’m gonna work with President Trump, but for you.”

Dooley doesn’t mention in the ad that he’s been endorsed by Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, but Kemp and his political operation have been boosting Dooley on the campaign trail and on the airwaves.

Kemp’s super PAC, Hardworking Americans Inc., has spent $813,000 on ads through the primary so far. And Kemp joined Dooley on a recent swing through the state.

Both Dooley and Kemp said at a campaign stop last week at a barbecue restaurant in Marietta that Dooley’s biggest hurdle in the race is not one of the congressmen lined up against him in the Republican primary. Instead, the challenge they see is reaching the group of voters who have not yet tuned into the race.

“The biggest competition right now is undecided, because I think over half the voters have not engaged or made a decision on this election,” Dooley said.

Kemp echoed that, saying, “When you really look at polling, I mean there’s 40, 50% of the people that hadn’t even weighed in.”

Collins’ campaign has argued that he is the frontrunner in the race, touting his recent fundraising haul of $1 million, surpassing Dooley and Carter’s fundraising totals for the first three months of the year. Dooley raised $663,000 and Carter raised $470,000.

“There’s only one campaign that’s succeeded in building a machine ready to deliver victory in November, and as all Republicans in Georgia see and know, the sooner we can unite around Mike Collins, the better off the entire Republican ticket will be,” Collins campaign manager Josh Siegel said in statement last week, later adding, “Slick advertisements are expensive, but authenticity is priceless.”

Carter ended March with the most money in his campaign account — $3.7 million on hand, thanks to a $3 million loan from the candidate himself. Ossoff, though, has continued to stockpile cash ahead of a hotly contested race in November, ending March with $31.7 million in his campaign account.

Ossoff is the only Democratic senator running for re-election in a state Trump won in 2024. Sen. Gary Peters, D-Mich., is not running for re-election.

Trump, who carried Georgia by 2 points in the last election, has stayed out of the GOP primary so far, though all of the candidates are jockeying for the president’s endorsement.

Dooley said on the campaign trail last week that he “would love and be honored to have the endorsement of the president, but my focus is on the voters, because ultimately that’s who’s punching the button on the ballot box.”

Kemp noted that he has had conversations with Trump and the White House political staff.

“It doesn’t seem like they’re going to weigh in, but you just never know what they may do,” he said. “But they also know that [Dooley’s] the one that’s got the momentum in the race right now.”