Photograph by Carmen Mandato/Getty Images
It was just over 40 years ago, on July 25, 1985, that legendary University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley shut down the rampant speculation that he was going to run for the Democratic nomination for the U.S. Senate in the 1986 election. A comment he’d made just three weeks earlier that he might join the race had fueled feverish excitement among Georgia Democrats, who saw him as the best hope to unseat incumbent Republican Mack Mattingly.
Longtime UGA political science professor Charles Bulloch remembers the commotion on campus over whether Dooley would take on the senate race.
“He certainly was taken seriously,” Bulloch told me. “I remember talking to him about it. He was a very bright guy. He had a masters in history. But he’d never run for office. He was plugged in and had lots of contacts and so he figured he could raise money. He was beginning to sketch out how [he could win.]” Bullock said university administrators probably were beginning to wonder if they might be faced with finding a replacement for one of the most illustrious coaches in UGA history.
But it was not to be. After two weeks of discussions with family and political leaders in the state, Dooley called a press conference and announced his decision: “I have decided under prayerful thought that at this time I cannot leave my football team, athletic association, and university.”
He went on to say it would be poor timing to abandon his team with the season opener against Alabama just five weeks away. The dismay among Georgia Democratic officials was vastly outweighed by the relief of die-hard Bulldog fans who revered Dooley. As one Democrat put it: “All is forgiven, Coach. Bring on Alabama!”
Ironically, Georgia lost that 1985 game against Alabama, 20 to 16. But even without Dooley as their nominee, Democrats secured the Mattingly seat in the senate when Atlanta Congressman Wyche Fowler won by some 22,000 votes.
Brian Kemp was an undergraduate student in UGA’s agriculture college at the time Dooley was contemplating the senate race. He was also a close friend of Dooley’s son Derek and the rest of the Dooley family. Now, with the 2026 elections on the horizon, Kemp has declared he’s putting his considerable political muscle behind his friend Derek Dooley—who, like his father, has had a long career as a football coach—for the GOP nomination for the senate seat currently held by Democrat Jon Ossoff. Dooley is expected to officially enter the race soon.
Photograph by Kevin C. Cox/Getty Images
It’s unusual for a party leader of Kemp’s stature to endorse a candidate so early in a primary season. Kemp had hoped to clear the field of other candidates to avoid the kind of nasty GOP primary fight that could damage the party’s chance of beating Ossoff next fall. But some Republicans are scratching their heads wondering why the governor is backing a candidate who’s never run for office, whose political views are unknown, and who has little, if any, name recognition beyond the fact that he’s a Dooley.
Professor Bulloch thinks the once-magical Dooley name may no longer resonate with Georgia voters.
“It’s a famous name especially for people like you and me,” Bullock said, referring to our long histories of living in Georgia. “Vince Dooley coached the team almost 40 years ago. So if you’re under 40 or 45, you don’t have any firsthand memories of this. And if you moved to Georgia anytime after about 1990, you again weren’t caught up in [the Dooley era.]”
Still, it’s foolish to discount the clout that Governor Kemp, the state’s most popular political leader, can bring to the Dooley campaign. Two of Kemp’s top political advisors have signed up to help guide his campaign.
Kemp’s endorsement of Dooley quickly persuaded GOP state insurance commissioner John King to withdraw from the senate race. But 1st District Republican Congressman Buddy Carter, the first candidate to jump into the race, says he has no intention of dropping out. And just this week, 10th District Republican Congressman Mike Collins announced he’s running for the senate seat, too.
All of this creates a fascinating dynamic for the GOP senate race—the kind of combative brawl Kemp had hoped to avoid.
Carter and Collins will duke it out to prove which of them is more deserving of the support of the MAGA faithful. Both insist they are proud warriors for President Donald Trump. Collins is known for serving up red meat to the MAGA base through his social media accounts, posting controversial and aggressive messages that have on occasion been called racist and antisemitic by critics. In a video announcing his run, Collins hits all the key Trump messages. He promises to “steamroll the radical left and deliver on President Trump’s America-first agenda.”
Meanwhile Carter has cozied up to Trump even more than he did during the president’s first term, going so far as to endorse the president’s goal of seizing Greenland by introducing a House Bill in February supporting the takeover and calling for Greenland to be renamed “Red, White, and Blue Land.”
The question political observers are asking now is where will Derek Dooley position himself in this race? With two road-tested Trump candidates already scrambling to win the MAGA base, what lane is open to Dooley? He may choose to emulate the successful strategy Kemp employed in winning reelection in 2022 despite a Trump-backed challenge from David Perdue. That would entail framing himself as a true conservative who values practical solutions over partisan warfare, making clear to Georgia business leaders that, like Kemp, he’ll be a champion for economic growth and job creation, and avoiding being snared by Trump’s contentious dramas.
Meanwhile, while the Republican campaigns ramp up, Ossoff, who has already amassed a war chest of more than $15 million, is waiting in the wings for his eventual opponent, preparing for a battle that will no doubt be one of the most expensive and highly competitive races of the 2026 election season. Most analysts believe Democrats will face an uphill battle to take control of the U.S. Senate next year. But holding on to the Ossoff seat will be a high priority for the party, and the battle will once again put Georgia in the national political spotlight and help define whether Georgia remains a stronghold for the right or a battleground state.
Bill Nigut has covered Georgia politics for more than 40 years, working as a reporter at Channel 2 News and at GPB as the host of Political Rewind. Most recently, he was a cohost of Politically Georgia for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and WABE.
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