Leaning heavily on his connection to a fabled Georgian with the same last name, former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley has entered the race for the Republican nomination to take on incumbent U.S. Senator Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, in next year’s elections.
A two-minute launch video released Monday opens with the 57-year-old Dooley striding across an empty football practice field in Athens and reflecting on the influence of his late father, former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley.
“Being on the sidelines of a football game, I watched him roll up his sleeves and work hard and have respect for everybody he encountered. He always followed through, and it taught me to do the same,” the younger Dooley says in the voice over. “To me, those are Georgia values.”
Dooley’s entry into what is expected to be one of the most contentious — and expensive — races in next year’s midterm elections was no surprise.
Though Dooley, an attorney who lives in Athens, has never run for public office, Gov. Brian Kemp late last month told two declared candidates in the contest — Coastal Georgia Congressman Earl “Buddy” Carter and state Insurance Commissioner John King — and one then-undeclared candidate — U.S. Rep. Mike Collins of Jackson — of his intention to support him in the GOP primary.
King quickly suspended his campaign, while Carter declared he was staying in the race. Collins formally announced his candidacy four days later.
With Dooley formally announcing his candidacy on Monday, the contest for the Republican nomination is, for the moment, a three-way race between the moderate conservative Dooley on the one hand, and two self-declared “MAGA warriors,” Carter and Collins, on the other.
Carter has already set out to blunt his MAGA rival’s main strength among Republican voters: immigration.
The son of longtime U.S. Rep. Mac Collins, the younger Collins is widely popular among the GOP rank-and-file for his sponsorship of the Laken Riley Act, named after a Georgia nursing student murdered by an undocumented immigrant in Athens in 2024.
The measure, which requires detention of undocumented immigrants accused of theft and violent crimes, was the first bill signed into law by the Trump administration earlier this year.
On Friday, Carter sought to reinforce his tough-on-immigration stance. He introduced a bill, named after New York City Mayor Eric Adams, that would make mayors of sanctuary cities liable in cases of murder committed by undocumented immigrants within their jurisdiction.
“Laken Riley and countless other loved ones could still be alive today if our immigration laws were respected by mayors of sanctuary cities,” he said in a news release issued by his office.
“As far as I’m concerned, they have blood on their hands and should be held personally accountable for creating a lawless environment that allows criminal illegal aliens to commit murder.”