Two Republican titans are now poised to run against each other (as well as against Democrats or other candidates) in the November special U.S. Senate election to fill the last two years of retired Sen. Johnny Isakson’s term.
U.S. Rep. Doug Collins, a Gainesville Republican and prominent advocate of President Donald Trump during his impeachment hearings, announced Wednesday on the Fox News Channel that he is mounting a campaign. GOP businesswoman Kelly Loeffler, the senator recently appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp to replace Isakson, is also running and pledges a $20 million TV ad campaign to introduce herself to Georgians. (And President Trump, by the way, singled her out for praise during yesterday’s USMCA trade treaty ceremony.)
Republican leaders worry that the two candidacies threaten to split conservative GOP voters at a time when Democrats hope to flip Isakson’s seat over to one of their own. (The other Senate seat, currently held by GOP Sen. David Perdue who is running for re-election, so far features a weak, under-funded field of Democrats running against him.)
By the way, with Collins running for Senate, three U.S. House of Representatives seats held by Republicans will be open. U.S. Reps. Tom Graves and Rob Woodall are retiring. Graves’ district is a Republican stronghold; Woodall barely won re-election in 2018 and Democrats now have a good chance to win it. In fact, Democratic Party State Chairman Nikema Williams says the 2018 elections– where Democratic candidates flipped some suburban Atlanta GOP state legislative seats– “show Democrats can win.”
Interestingly, state House Speaker David Ralston had high praise for his “friend” Collins when he appeared in the chamber this week to deliver the morning prayer. Kemp, on the other hand, is strongly backing Loeffler. “She doesn’t owe anybody anything in Washington, D.C.,” the governor said in remarks to a Faith and Freedom Coalition luncheon yesterday. “What she owes is her fighting for this state of Georgia, and that is what I told her to do when she got up there.”
Here’s the big question: What will President Trump do? For now, probably nothing. After all, Loeffler is a “juror” in the Senate trial of Trump on impeachment charges. But Trump had openly urged Kemp to appoint Collins to the seat and was deeply disappointed the congressman didn’t get it. So Collins hopes that, at some point, Trump will endorse him. Loeffler hopes the president will just stay neutral and let voters decide.
