Ex-football coach Derek Dooley challenges Jon Ossoff in Georgia
Former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley launched a bid on Monday for the Republican nod to take on Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) next year, adding a high-profile name to one of the midterms’ most consequential contests.
Dooley is the son of former University of Georgia football coach Vince Dooley, an icon in Georgia athletics whose teams nabbed a national championship and six SEC titles. Derek Dooley, like his father, played college football and later coached. The younger Dooley coached both at the NFL and college level.
A political newcomer, Derek Dooley leaned into his family background, his time coaching football and his political outsider status in a two-minute ad announcing his campaign.
“I spent three decades in coaching, probably doing the exact opposite of what a lot of DC politicians were doing,” Derek Dooley says in the ad. “I sat in kitchens and living rooms with people from all walks of life. The only thing that mattered was trying to create hope and opportunity for them and that family.”
The ad hinted at some of the issues the former football coach might campaign on, including keeping transgender women out of women’s sports leagues, reining in government spending, and border security.
Derek Dooley also lauded Donald Trump in his ad, saying the president “campaigned on things, and he’s turning them into results,” while knocking Ossoff’s voting record.
The former football coach’s entry adds to a growing field of GOP candidates, which include Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins.
Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp (R), who was heavily courted to run for Senate against Ossoff and ultimately declined, is backing Dooley, giving the candidate a major boost out of the gate.
But Collins has also racked up some early endorsements, including from former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), state Senate Majority Leader Jason Anavitarte, state House Majority Whip James Burchett and state Rep. Matthew Gambill, one of Kemp’s House floor leaders.
Trump so far has not weighed in. Collins does enjoy some ties to Trump’s orbit, including his chief of staff Brandon Phillips, who’s a Trump campaign alum.
Georgia is seen as a critical pickup opportunity for Republicans, and the party is looking to avoid a repeat of 2022, when the GOP nominated a weak candidate in former football star Herschel Walker who later narrowly lost to Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.).