The Georgia Hour, episode 145: Georgia’s Political Divide: Can Dooley Outshine Collins in the Senate Race Showdown?

Explore Geor­gia’s heat­ed 2026 Sen­ate race as Derek Doo­ley, backed by Gov. Bri­an Kemp, chal­lenges MAGA favorite Mike Collins to unseat Sen. Jon Ossoff. With ICE arrests surg­ing 367%, elec­tion board dis­putes, and Raf­fensperg­er’s fraud-fight­ing push, Geor­gia’s polit­i­cal land­scape is frac­tur­ing. Learn how Doo­ley’s Trump align­ment, Kem­p’s donor net­work, and strate­gic cam­paign could shift the com­pet­i­tive edge. Plus, dis­cov­er the stakes in Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er races and the House Com­mit­tee on Gam­bling’s rev­enue plans. Stay informed on Geor­gia’s piv­otal polit­i­cal bat­tles.

• We have a clear divide in Geor­gia away from MAGA. We have peo­ple that are say­ing they are MAGA and Amer­i­ca First that are sup­port­ing gov­er­nor Kemp. Every­thing is set up for divi­sion in the state, sep­a­rate, divide and con­quer. 
• ICE Arrests in Geor­gia sky­rock­et, 4500 Arrests a 367% increase. 
• Gabe Ster­ling and Raf­fensperg­er have not announced the office they are run­ning for yet. 
• In an inter­view, Sen­ate can­di­date Derek Doo­ley made clear there’s no day­light between his stances and Trump’s pri­or­i­ties. He defeat­ed his record of not vot­ing in pre­vi­ous pres­i­den­tial elec­tions. And he said he wasn’t as close to Kemp as some might think. Cody Hall is Run­ning Dooley’s cam­paign. Two weeks ago, you would think that Doo­ley could not even stand in the race. There was a time when the media would have ran him out of town. They are let­ting it all hap­pen and allow­ing him to do the inter­views to bring him up. There is a struc­ture and deliv­ery sys­tem and now Doo­ley is ready. There is a team and mon­ey put togeth­er to go after Mike Collins. Mike Collins looks great for two weeks. There needs to be a slow shift to where the com­pet­i­tive edge is not going to Mike Collins any­more. Doo­ley knows peo­ple and has mon­ey. Derek Doo­ley casts him­self as the Sen­ate out­sider who can win. Can Doo­ley play with the peo­ple in Buck­head? Can Collins park his big rig in Buck­head? 
• Doo­ley had a meet­ing with Trump. Nick Saban of Alaba­ma is the one that got Doo­ley the meet­ing with Trump. Doo­ley is going to pre­tend like he is pro-Trump that there is no day­light between Trump and Doo­ley. It will be sold to you that Doo­ley is the bet­ter can­di­date to defeat Ossoff. And it will be put in your face every­day that Mike Collins will not be able to go toe to toe with Jon Ossoff. This arti­cle in the AJC is to set Doo­ley up as his own man. He wants you to believe that he spent a long time to get Kemp to believe he was the guy. Every­thing they are doing is a set up for this guy. Remem­ber Bri­an Kemp told the donors that he and Mar­ty have a plan. Then Bri­an put every­thing in place. Then they set up the clear­ing­house for the dona­tions to fall off into Kemp’s cof­fers. Watch the way they are lay­ing out his cam­paign. Doo­ley and John Kennedy (run­ning for Lt Gov) both using Cody Hall to run their cam­paign, set up to take the right pic­ture for the AJC arti­cle. 
• Is Doo­ley the pos­si­ble can­di­date that sup­ports Trump and Kemp? Mike Collins can’t say that because Kemp is the one that brought Doo­ley into the race. The AJC is writ­ing his plat­form for him. He does not have an uncom­mon sto­ry in Amer­i­ca. Go to these meet­ings and find out when the peo­ple got involved. When peo­ple start­ed to pay atten­tion was after COVID… it changed him. 
• Will Trump endorse Doo­ley? Is it a lock to endorse Collins? Is there a way for Trump to walk away from endors­ing Mike Collins? Trump is watch­ing this race and watch­ing the devel­op­ments. Trump is prob­a­bly going to sit on the side­lines for a lit­tle bit. 
• Bri­an Kemp’s Hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans Inc is sup­posed to be a polit­i­cal pac for fed­er­al can­di­dates nation­al­ly. There is a lot of mon­ey being spent on Doo­ley. There has already been about a mil­lion dol­lars spent on Doo­ley cam­paign. When Kemp decid­ed to not run for Sen­ate he had to find the guy that would fit. Hard­work­ing Amer­i­cans’ the fed­er­al pac aligned with Bri­an Kemp, raised more than $500K at a fundrais­er last week at the home of Don and Stacey Lee­bern. We were told the shindig took in con­tri­bu­tions from some of the biggest donors in the state. 
• Jason Fraiz­er and Julie Adams are the most dan­ger­ous peo­ple in Geor­gia, accord­ing to the Ful­ton Coun­ty board of com­mis­sion­ers. Jason and Julie were nom­i­nat­ed by the repub­li­can par­ty of Ful­ton Coun­ty to be the repub­li­can appoint­ments to the board of elec­tions. They have been denied the appoint­ment and it has gone to court with the finan­cial back­ing of the RNC. The com­mis­sion­ers were in con­tempt of court twice. The appeals court denies the com­mis­sion­ers’ stay dur­ing the appeals process. The court sets anoth­er hear­ing for the case on Wednes­day August 27th at 10am. Wednes­day will be inter­est­ing. Ful­ton County’s argu­ment is that the court can­not tell the com­mis­sion­ers how to vote or the ones that were miss­ing had an excuse to miss the meet­ing. How could they be in con­tempt?  
• In Geor­gia we have two Pub­lic Ser­vice Com­mis­sion­er races in Novem­ber. If a demo­c­rat wins one or both seats, this will be like the biggest thing that has ever hap­pened. IF you don’t go out and vote R you will pay the price down the road. 
• After the First Lib­er­ty col­lapse, Raf­fensperg­er push­es for fraud-fight­ing pow­ers. Raf­fensperg­er is going to push for leg­is­la­tion in 2026 as a cam­paign issue. 
• House Com­mit­tee on Gam­bling meets in Watkinsville. State rep Mar­cus Wiedow­er chairs the com­mit­tee. HR753 House Study com­mit­tee on gam­ing starts today. The sen­ate is run­ning down the lane of end­ing state income tax. Hav­ing meet­ings on how to get the mon­ey when they end the income tax. You lay out the cheer for end­ing state income tax, we will have to hur­dle the loss of rev­enue.. Won­der where the rev­enue would come from… in comes gam­bling.