During a small spring dinner at the Georgia Governor’s Mansion, the pressure campaign to get Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp to run for the Senate was the subject of uneasy punch lines.
Kemp, a popular Republican governor with a prebuilt fundraising machine, was the top recruit of national Republican organizations looking to snag a primary field-clearing candidate to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in a state that will present one of the most challenging and expensive races of the 2026 midterms.
“They are calling the wrong Kemp,” joked Marty Kemp, the governor’s wife and an influential voice in his political decision-making, according to two Georgia Republicans, who, like others, spoke under condition of anonymity to describe private conversations. The comment was made in jest: Kemp himself was always the hardest one to sell on the idea of running for the Senate, but it underscores the intensity of the push to get Kemp in the race.
Kemp ultimately announced in May that he would not run for the Senate. But he is very much involved in the race — and in the fact that it remains one of the few unsettled primaries Senate Republicans have on the board ahead of the 2026 midterms.
Republicans led by President Donald Trump have worked to head off primaries in key Senate races as the GOP defends its 53-47 majority next year. Trump has anointed preferred candidates in Michigan, a top Republican target, and in North Carolina and Iowa, two seats the party is defending. While Trump has not yet weighed in on the New Hampshire Senate race, Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., who chairs the Senate GOP’s campaign arm, is backing former Sen. John Sununu.
The Georgia primary, though, remains in flux. The announcement ultimately plunged Republicans into a messy, uncertain three-way primary, which features Kemp-backed Derek Dooley, an attorney and former college football coach, and Reps. Mike Collins and Buddy Carter, each of whom is vying for Trump’s endorsement, which would quickly end the contest.
“Obviously, the governor was the top recruit. No one disagrees with that. If he would have decided to run, it would have been the beginning, middle and end of things,” said a veteran Republican strategist working on Senate races.
Another national Republican operative involved in Senate races said of Kemp’s timeline: “It took him a long time to make his decision. That’s unfortunate.”
Even as some Republicans in the state lament Kemp’s decision delay, all are now turning their focus to the deciding factor in many GOP primaries in the last decade: Trump, who seems poised to wait months before he makes an endorsement.
Operatives working on and observing the race believe Trump is enjoying having the candidates work for his support and is also keeping in mind past early primary endorsements gone awry, most notably his backing of Kari Lake in Arizona’s 2024 Senate race. Lake, who has since joined the Trump administration, was widely viewed as a lackluster candidate and at times faced criticism from Trump himself.
“The president is tired of candidates who don’t know how to work,” said a former Trump adviser who worked for his 2024 campaign. “It’s kind of a ‘prove it to me’ thing at this point.’”
“I don’t think he will get involved anytime soon,” the person said.
For Dooley, the flirtation with Trump is necessary but complicated.
Kemp — whose super PAC has already spent $467,000 on TV ads helping Dooley, according to the ad-tracking firm AdImpact — has had an icy relationship with Trump in the past. Trump backed Kemp’s primary challenger in 2022 after Kemp pushed back against Trump’s efforts to overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia, but Kemp easily turned aside the challenge from former Sen. David Perdue, winning by more than 50 points.
The two have reached a tentative peace since Kemp’s 2022 primary, and Kemp helped Trump’s campaign in his key swing state in 2024. Trump won the state last year by just 2 percentage points.
That peace was brokered by Steve Witkoff, who would go on to become Trump’s special envoy to the Middle East and a central figure in the administration’s foreign policy strategy. According to a former Trump adviser, he brought the two men together last year at a news conference where they discussed the response to Hurricane Helene, which left 500,000 people in Georgia without power.
Witkoff knew how important Georgia was, and he wanted to make sure both men were on the same page during the final stretch in the swing state.
“The first peace deal Steve Witkoff brokered was between Donald Trump and Brian Kemp,” joked the former Trump adviser.
A Kemp adviser said he and Trump have a “positive relationship,” noting the two had direct communication ahead of federal immigration raids at a Georgia Hyundai plant last month that led to 475 arrests.
But that detente hasn’t led to any quick shows of support for Kemp’s handpicked Senate candidate. Dooley, who is making his first foray into politics, met with Trump on Aug. 8 to make his pitch that he should be the nominee.
“We had a very engaging conversation,” Dooley said of the meeting on the Clay Travis “Outkick” podcast. “And look, I hope to earn his support just like I got Gov. Kemp’s support. But again, the most important support I could get are from the people of Georgia.”
The meeting went well, according to a White House aide, but did not move Trump to make an early endorsement.
That has left the door open for Carter and Collins, who is scheduled to meet with Trump in the coming weeks, three people with direct knowledge of the plans told NBC News.
Collins advisers hope that if that meeting goes well, the fact that Collins had a good third-quarter fundraising haul, coupled with the fact he lacks the perceived anti-Trump baggage associated with a Kemp-backed candidate, could help sway Trump to endorse before the end of the year.
“He is passing all the tests,” a Collins adviser said. “He has raised money, his polling looks good, and he has voted 100% with the president. I think that’s the case that can be made.”
Both Collins and Dooley announced this month that they raised close to $2 million during the past three months, and Carter’s campaign has roughly $3 million cash on hand, including a $2 million loan from himself.
GOP donors have so far been watching to see whether the White House will pick a preferred candidate, according to a Republican strategist familiar with the race.
“They are looking at signs from the White House or an indicator from the White House,” the strategist said, adding, “The longer this plays out without any clear signal, I think you will start to see more and more donors get engaged.”
Many donors have relationships with Kemp, the strategist said, and he has been connecting his network with Dooley, who has impressed some donors as “very personable, likable, smart on the issues.”
Carter, with the race’s biggest war chest, has already spent $4 million on television, largely featuring clips of Trump calling him a “warrior” and a “great guy.”
“We have had very positive meetings with the White House,” a Carter adviser said. “Buddy is Trump through and through. We are aware we are in the evaluation period, and I would note that we do have the biggest war chest in the race.”
The adviser said that, like Collins, Carter plans to meet directly with Trump in the coming weeks.
Altogether, Georgia Republicans may have to dig in for a monthslong grueling primary campaign before they gear back up to take on Ossoff in the general election.
“Right now,” the Collins adviser said, “the lack of clarity is burning not just Georgia Republicans, but national Republicans.”
