Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins is taking an early lead in the Georgia Republican Senate primary contest, according to recent polling.
Collins, a two-term lawmaker, leads a hypothetical field with 27% of Republican midterm voters — followed by Republican Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter at 20% and former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley at 8% — according to an online poll conducted by the TechnoMetrica Institute of Policy and and Politics (TIPP) for the League of American Workers (LAW), exclusively obtained by the Daily Caller News Foundation. The closely-watched primary contest is still wide open — with 39% of voters undecided about their preferred candidate to unseat Democratic Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff — according to the same poll.
Republicans view Georgia as one of the party’s best pickup opportunities to grow its 53-seat Senate majority in 2026. Ossoff is widely considered the most vulnerable Democratic incumbent running for reelection due to Georgia’s Republican leanings and President Donald Trump carrying the state last November.
Ossoff’s GOP challengers are also within striking distance of defeating him in a general election contest with Collins performing the best among the Republican candidates, according to the TIPP poll.
Collins trails Ossoff by just one percentage point in a hypothetical matchup surveying registered voters, 45% to 44%, with just 8% of voters undecided.
Carter and Dooley also perform well against Ossoff, trailing the Democratic incumbent by just two percentage points and three percentage points respectively.
The Georgia electorate is still largely unfamiliar with all three of the leading Republican primary candidates.
Sixty-three percent of Georgia of registered voters have no opinion of Dooley while Collins is at 58% and Carter at 56%.
The survey was notably conducted prior to Dooley jumping in the race Monday after months of speculation whether the political newcomer backed by Republican Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp would launch a bid. Collins also entered the race the day the pollster began surveying voters.
High-profile Georgia Republicans have publicly backed Collins’ campaign in recent weeks and Collins has pointed to the endorsements as a sign of growing support for his candidacy. Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich has thrown his support behind Collins’ campaign in addition to Georgia State Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte and House Majority Whip James Burchett.
Trump has yet to make an endorsement in the primary contest and all three Republican candidates are vying for his support.
The survey also found that Georgia voters’ support for the president’s deportation agenda is holding strong. A majority of 55% of Georgia registered voters back Trump’s immigration policies when told the pace of deportations is increasing with a focus on illegal immigrants with criminal backgrounds, including 25% of Democratic voters, according to the poll.
TIPP surveyed 2,956 registered voters and was conducted using an online panel between July 28 and August 1. The poll has a credibility interval of plus or minus 1.8 percentage points.
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