Republicans fuming as red state governor derails their midterm plans

U.S. President Donald Trump reacts at the end of the State of the Union address in the House Chamber of the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 24, 2026. REUTERS/KEVIN LAMARQUE

Notus reports that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp keeps dishing up disappointment for Republicans.

“Heading into the midterms, Republicans thought Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp was their best chance to beat Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff,” reports Notus. “But Kemp declined to run, and is now, much to the befuddlement of national Republicans, supporting a candidate who is in a distant third and could likely force the GOP primary into an expensive runoff.”

Kemp initially agreed to work with the National Republican Senatorial Committee to find the right candidate to take on the popular Ossoff the following November, but then ducked commands and endorsed former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, despite the fact that his endorsement increases the likelihood of an expensive Republican runoff.

Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde told NOTUS that the race is “definitely going into a runoff” because none of the three candidates will likely win more than 50 of the vote required to avoid it.

“As I understand, there was an agreement between the president and Kemp that they would come up with a candidate that both of them agreed to, and that never happened,” said Clyde, adding that he would “reserve his comments” when asked if he’s disappointed with the race.

Kemp’s mistake, say Republicans was that he backed Dooley without getting his marching orders from President Donald Trump.

“You don’t get to go past the Trump team and then turn around and come back to them and say, ‘Hey, can I have your endorsement now?’ Right? It was a strategic mistake,” an anonymous Georgia Republican told NOTUS.

Kemp told Notus, however, that Trump was too slow in making his endorsement official.

“Other people were getting in the race and, you know, they wouldn’t move, and I wasn’t going to sit around and wait and have legislators keep endorsing other candidates,” Kemp said. “I was doing all I could to get people to coalesce around one candidate. But when that didn’t play out, I’m not going to sit around and do nothing when I have very strong feelings about what kind of candidate that we need to win in our state.”

Despite signing a bill putting his own voters on the hook to pay out millions of dollars to Trump, Kemp’s relationship with the president runs hot and cold. Kemp burned a bridge with Trump during the president’s fake electors scheme to steal the 2020 national election. Kemp later defeated one of Trump’s fake electors to claim his governor’s seat in 2022.

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