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President Donald Trump’s political team and top advisers to Republican Gov. Brian Kemp of Georgia apparently aren’t on the same page when it comes to the key southeastern battleground state’s Republican Senate primary.
The race is crucial for Republicans aiming to expand their Senate majority, as Sen. Jon Ossoff, who is running for re-election in a state that Trump narrowly carried in last year’s election, is viewed by the GOP as the most vulnerable Democrat seeking re-election in next year’s midterm elections.
Kemp, a popular two-term conservative governor whom Trump had heavily criticized in the past, was courted by national Republicans to take on Ossoff. But Kemp, who is term-limited, announced earlier this year that he would pass on a 2026 Senate run.
Sources in Trump’s political orbit and Republican sources in Georgia confirm to Fox News that there was an agreement between the president’s political operation and Kemp’s political team that they would work together to find a candidate that they could all unify behind to take on Ossoff in the Senate race.
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Those sources also confirm that Kemp and Trump – the ultimate kingmaker in GOP politics – met two weeks ago to discuss the Senate race in Georgia.
But when the governor floated the name of former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, a source close to the president’s political team said “they were told to stand down, because Trump’s team wasn’t ready to move forward on anybody.”
And when Kemp and his team did move forward with Dooley, it upset Trump’s advisers, who, according to sources, were “already pretty annoyed” that Kemp had passed earlier this year on taking on Ossoff in the Senate race.
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“We had a deal to work together,” a top political source in the Trump orbit told Fox News on Friday. “Kemp went out on his own – which has frustrated and pissed off Trump orbit.”
The source added that “the best option for the GOP in Georgia was and is Brian Kemp. Unfortunately, he has chosen the path of the weak, and – instead of leading – has decided to circumvent and self-anoint a candidate no one has heard of and the president hasn’t met.”
“The operation that delivered the win in Georgia was the Trump organization – not a faux operation – it’s hard to see it rallying behind the blind ambition of someone more interested in 2028 than in 2026,” the source said, in a not-so-veiled reference to Kemp’s potential interest in seeking the 2028 Republican presidential nomination.
But a source close to the governor told Fox News that it’s factually not true that they were told to stand down on Dooley.
And the source added that Kemp meant what he said that he wants to work with the president and his team and remains that way.
Kemp’s political team first floated the Dooley trial balloon about two months ago. A longtime Georgia-based Republican strategist said the reaction in the Peach State among Republicans “was very negative.”
Dooley, who is the son of former longtime University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, is close with Kemp, who is a longtime friend.
And Dooley has hired two top Kemp political advisers to help with his potential Senate campaign.
A Republican source in Georgia says a decision by Dooley on whether he’ll run could come as early as next week.
Republican Rep. Mike Collins, a Trump ally and supporter in the House, will announce his candidacy for the Senate next week, sources with knowledge told Fox News Digital on Friday.
Republican Rep. Buddy Carter, who for a decade has represented a district in coastal Georgia, launched a Senate campaign in the spring.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King also announced a run, but ended his bid on Thursday.
Trump and Kemp have a turbulent political history.
Trump backed the then-Georgia secretary of state in his successful 2018 campaign for governor.
But during the two years after his 2020 election defeat to former President Joe Biden, which included a razor-thin loss in Georgia, Trump attacked Kemp for failing to overturn the election results in his state.
Trump toned down the criticism in 2022 after Kemp crushed Trump-backed former Sen. David Perdue in the state’s GOP gubernatorial primary, as Kemp successfully cruised to re-election to a second term as governor.
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But last summer, amid the 2024 presidential campaign, Trump went on a 10-minute tirade against Kemp at a rally in Atlanta just blocks from the Georgia State Capitol. Trump blamed the governor not only for failing to overturn the 2020 vote count but also for not stopping a county prosecutor from indicting the former president for his attempts to reverse the results.
Trump quickly changed his tune on Kemp days later, and praised the governor in a social media post “for all of your help and support in Georgia, where a win is so important to the success of our Party and, most importantly, our Country.”
Kemp, in a Fox News Digital interview a few days later, downplayed Trump’s tirade against him, calling it a “small distraction that’s in the past.”
As Dooley moves closer to launching a campaign, Collins is just days from declaring his candidacy.
Collins, a businessman who founded a trucking company, is in his second term representing Georgia’s 10th Congressional District, which includes a large swath of urban, suburban, and rural areas between Atlanta and Augusta.
The conservative lawmaker, who’s the son of the late Republican Rep. Mac Collins of Georgia, has been moving closer to launching a Senate campaign for weeks.
Collins was an early backer of the president, supporting him as Trump first ran for the Republican presidential nomination in the 2016 cycle.
Collins at the beginning of this year reintroduced the Laken Riley Act, which mandates that undocumented immigrants charged with burglary or theft be detained. It’s named after a Georgia nursing student killed by a man who had illegally entered the U.S. The case grabbed national attention.
The bill, which quickly passed the Republican-controlled House and Senate, became the first legislation signed into law by Trump as he started his second tour of duty in the White House.
A Republican source said that Collins has a “great relationship” with the president and his political team.
And a Georgia-based Republican consultant told Fox News that “the lane that Mike is going to run in is the America First fighter who’s been with President Trump.
Carter is also courting a Trump endorsement in the GOP primary.
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