The Republican Senate primary in Georgia will head to a runoff next month, with Representative Mike Collins, an immigration hard-liner and a trucking executive, advancing and no candidate on track to win a majority of the vote Tuesday, according to The Associated Press.
Mr. Collins was leading Derek Dooley, a former University of Tennessee football coach, and Representative Buddy Carter, a former pharmacy owner, according to incomplete results. It was unclear who would secure the second spot in the runoff.
The three Republicans have battled for the chance to take on Senator Jon Ossoff, a first-term Democrat who is seen by his party as a rising star and by Republicans as a formidable adversary. Mr. Ossoff did not face a primary challenger on Tuesday.
As the Republican race has played out, some in the party have become anxious that they are poorly positioned for what is expected to be one of the most competitive Senate elections in November.
The uncertain outcome Tuesday did not appear likely to allay those fears. The Republican race now moves toward a June 16 runoff that could bruise the finalists and drain resources that would otherwise be used in the general election.
Attacks between the candidates had already begun to sharpen in the final days before Tuesday’s primary. Mr. Carter assailed Mr. Collins over a House ethics inquiry related to allegations that a member of Mr. Collins’s staff had a romantic relationship with an intern, and that the intern received pay without doing work. Mr. Collins has dismissed the matter, calling the complaint “bogus.”
Mr. Collins’s campaign called Mr. Dooley a “failed” coach and claimed that Mr. Carter was corrupt. (The Federal Election Commission in 2022 investigated a claim that Mr. Carter’s campaign had violated campaign finance laws but ultimately cleared him.)
Mr. Collins also has a history of incendiary social-media posts, including one suggesting that President Joseph R. Biden Jr. “sent the orders” for an assassination attempt against Mr. Trump in 2024.
All three candidates have angled for President Trump’s endorsement, but he has so far remained publicly neutral.
Mr. Collins sponsored the first piece of legislation Mr. Trump signed after returning to office, the Laken Riley Act, a law targeting undocumented immigrants for deportation. Mr. Dooley met with Mr. Trump at the White House for more than an hour in August, discussing football and politics, according to his campaign. Mr. Carter has been especially zealous in his outreach to the president, introducing a resolution in support of a Nobel Peace Prize for Mr. Trump and saying he has no points of disagreement with the president.
Instead of turning on the judgment of the president, the race has increasingly become a test of Gov. Brian Kemp’s influence as he prepares to leave office. Mr. Kemp has often been at Mr. Dooley’s side in recent months, joining him at dozens of events, and his political organization made a major financial investment in support of the former coach.
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