Source: Politics<\/p>\n
Georgia Republicans are already bracing for their bruising Senate primary<\/a> to continue past Tuesday night.<\/p>\n Once viewed as a clear GOP pickup opportunity, the contest to take on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has remained largely static for months \u2014 with no candidate fully separating from the field and President Donald Trump yet to get involved.<\/p>\n Many expect the contest to go to a runoff, interviews with more than half a dozen GOP strategists and campaign officials reveal. Rep. Mike Collins, the front-runner, is likely to make the cut, but it\u2019s unclear whether he\u2019ll face fellow Rep. Buddy Carter or former football coach Derek Dooley, who\u2019s had a late rise in the polls.<\/p>\n That means while the candidates are poised to duke it out until June 16 for the GOP nomination, Ossoff has free rein to shore up his cash advantage<\/a> and attack lines ahead of November. The Democrat, Republicans say, is beatable \u2014 but the path to unseating him gets more difficult if their own primary drags on.<\/p>\n \u201cThe longer the party stays fractured … that harms the chances in the general election,\u201d said Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County GOP chair. \u201cThe beneficiary of all this is Jon Ossoff. All he has to do right now is continue to raise money.\u201d<\/p>\n Cole Muzio, a conservative activist and president of the Frontline Policy Council who voted for Collins, said the nearly large faction of undecided voters \u201cis wild for what was initially supposed to be the most competitive race in the country\u2026. It is not a good scenario.\u201d<\/p>\n With Trump still on the sidelines, the candidates have been largely left to battle it out on their own, exposing fault lines over MAGA loyalty. Collins and Carter, both allies of the president, have mostly aimed their fire at one another as they work to win over the far-right base.<\/p>\n Collins, who has the backing of the Club for Growth PAC,<\/a> a major conservative super PAC, appeared at a campaign rally with Trump earlier this year, while Carter has presented himself as a \u201ctrusted MAGA warrior.\u201d Carter has ramped up his spending in the contest\u2019s closing weeks, but recent polling<\/a> shows Dooley beating him in second place.<\/p>\n And that\u2019s exactly where Dooley\u2019s campaign says they want him to be.<\/p>\n Dooley jumped into the race<\/a> with Gov. Brian Kemp\u2019s backing \u2014 and he\u2019s gained momentum in the final stretch by leaning on his status as a political outsider and emphasizing his ties to a popular governor whose approval rating is nearly 20 points higher<\/a> than Trump\u2019s in Georgia.<\/p>\n His rise is emerging as yet another test of Kemp\u2019s political muscle against the party\u2019s more hardline MAGA wing. The governor has joined Dooley at dozens of campaign stops. And Hardworking Americans, a Kemp-aligned PAC, is up on the air<\/a> on Dooley’s behalf.<\/p>\n \u201cI’m totally fine with the timing of where we are, because really all we lost is the D.C. chattering class thinking that Derek didn’t have a chance. I’m more than happy to overperform expectations,\u201d said one senior Dooley adviser, who, like others in this article, was granted anonymity to speak candidly. \u201cTraditionally, you want to be spending your money and peaking when people are voting or right before they’re voting, and that’s what we’ve been able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n Dooley\u2019s campaign declined to comment.<\/p>\n Collins spokesperson Corbin Keown said in a statement that \u201cdespite the field outspending Mike Collins 15-to-1 in advertising, Georgians have consistently shown that they want [his] conservative record.\u201d Carter, in a statement, expressed confidence in his standing with voters and said \u201cOssoff is desperate to face one of my primary opponents because he knows their baggage would distract from his terrible record.\u201d<\/p>\n Republicans are hopeful that Tuesday night\u2019s outcome \u2014 especially if it\u2019s a runoff \u2014 will finally force Trump\u2019s hand on an endorsement, putting the national political spotlight back on the Georgia Senate race.<\/p>\n The Collins campaign is already looking to make a pitch for Trump\u2019s backing after the results come in.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are definitely going to make the case starting Wednesday that it\u2019s clear he’s the best candidate for the general,\u201d said one Republican strategist close to Collins\u2019 campaign.<\/p>\n Trump\u2019s endorsement has already proven to have significant sway in Republican primaries. His efforts to run challengers against several state GOP senators in Indiana<\/a> and against Sen. Bill Cassidy in Louisiana<\/a> paid off. His endorsement of Barry Moore in Alabama\u2019s Senate race helped him become the new front-runner. And he\u2019s fronting a challenger<\/a> to Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie in what has turned into a very tight \u2014 and incredibly expensive \u2014 contest.<\/p>\n But even though all three leading GOP candidates for Georgia Senate have had meetings at the White House, they\u2019ve had little luck getting Trump to weigh in publicly. That has meant that other party operations, such as the National Republican Senatorial Committee \u2014 which typically follow the president\u2019s lead or wait until a nominee emerges from the primary \u2014 have also stayed on the sidelines.<\/p>\n The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment.<\/p>\n Some Republicans argue that outside funding will ramp up significantly once the primary concludes.<\/p>\n \u201cEvery race in Georgia will tighten between now and Sept. 1, and when it comes time to put resources together, Georgia will be in the fold,\u201d said one Georgia-based GOP strategist close to Kemp. The Senate Leadership Fund, the top Senate GOP super PAC, has committed an initial $44 million in Georgia<\/a>.<\/p>\n But in the meantime, the fractured primary field has started Republicans on their back foot while Ossoff continues to raise money. The Democrat ended the first quarter of the year with $31 million in the bank<\/a>, according to federal campaign finance reports, and has largely allowed his trio of challengers to battle themselves rather than taking direct aim across the aisle.<\/p>\n \u201c[The race] will tighten, I think, but right now, it’s looking a little gloomier than what it normally would just because Ossoff is building a war chest and we\u2019re infighting and all these things,\u201d said another Georgia-based Republican strategist, who is unaffiliated with a Senate campaign.<\/p>\n Beyond contending with Ossoff\u2019s warchest, the Senate GOP candidates continue to face another hurdle: Breaking through with voters at the same time as the Republican gubernatorial race is sucking up all the political \u2014 and advertising \u2014 oxygen.<\/p>\n