Rep. Mike Collins has secured the Republican nomination for Georgia's Senate seat, defeating former football coach Derek Dooley in Tuesday's runoff and clearing the path to face Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff in one of the nation's most consequential fall races.
Collins' victory delivers a win for Donald Trump, who endorsed the congressman days before the runoff. Dooley had backing from Gov. Brian Kemp, who campaigned aggressively for the political outsider as the better choice to unseat Ossoff.
The two Republicans advanced to the runoff after neither captured a majority in the May 19 primary. Collins, first elected to the House in 2022, has positioned himself as a Trump loyalist and pitched himself to voters as a "conservative workhorse." On the campaign trail, he has highlighted his authorship of the Laken Riley Act, an immigration detention measure that became Trump's first signed bill in his second term. The legislation was named after a Georgia nursing student killed by a Venezuelan man who entered the country illegally.
Georgia represents critical terrain for Democrats seeking to expand their Senate majority. Ossoff is the only Democratic senator running for re-election in a state Trump carried in 2024, making the seat essential to the party's four-seat pickup goal. The state itself has tightened considerably. Trump won by just 2 percentage points this year. Biden carried it by less than half a point in 2020. Ossoff won his seat in a 2021 runoff by roughly 1 point, defeating GOP Sen. David Perdue and handing Democrats control of the chamber.
The general election clash is already shaping up as a high-stakes battle. Collins has begun attacking Ossoff's character and record, telling supporters at a Cumming rally that the senator "doesn't represent us, he doesn't reflect our state" and "has never had a real job in his life." Collins accused Ossoff of being "bought and paid for by those crazy folks in California and nutjobs in New York."
Ossoff, for his part, has questioned Collins' legitimacy, calling him "a congressman who's only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman." The Democrat has also set up an attack on the ethics front, previewing House Ethics Committee allegations that Collins misused congressional funds by paying a former aide for campaign work and employing the aide's girlfriend despite her not performing office duties. Collins has called the allegations "bogus."
The underlying controversy stems from Brandon Phillips, Collins' former chief of staff, who was removed from both the campaign and congressional office after publishing a disparaging post on Collins' campaign X account. When pressed at a rally about the ethics probe and Phillips controversies, Collins dismissed the attacks as inevitable noise. "I can win this thing. They can sling whatever they want. Our real enemy is Jon Ossoff," he said, expressing confidence that Republicans would unify after the primary battle.
On economic concerns, Collins suggested improvement is coming. He pointed to a concluded Iran deal as a catalyst for rising oil supplies and gas price declines, though he acknowledged current pump prices remain elevated. "The economy is moving. Gas prices are too high, but you're going to see them start coming down awful soon," he said.
When asked whether he disagreed with any Trump actions in the second term, Collins declined to name substantive policy objections. His only point of contention: Trump's sleep habits. "Listen, I ran on Trump policies. I ran on 'America First.' I wholeheartedly support what he's been doing," Collins told NBC News.
The race is poised to become enormously expensive. Super PACs have committed $64 million combined to the contest, with spending likely to accelerate. Ossoff enters with a decisive funding edge. His campaign has raised more than $80 million and held $32 million in cash as of late April. Collins, whose most recent filing came after the runoff, reported $4.9 million raised and $1.2 million on hand as of late May.
Ossoff has projected confidence regardless of his opponent. "It doesn't matter which one wins. They're both corrupt political insiders, and they're both pro-war, pro-tariff and pro-cutting your healthcare. They're both Trump puppets, and we'll beat either one of them in November," he said at a recent rally.
Author Sarah Mitchell: "Collins survived a Trump-endorsed primary against a Kemp-backed rival in a state where margins are razor thin. November is going to be brutal."
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