A Trump-backed, scandal-tainted nepo baby will challenge Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in the fall.
Representative Mike Collins (R-GA), now the Republican candidate for Senate, gives a speech during a runoff election-night party in Jackson, Georgia.
(Jessica McGowan / Getty Images)
Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff won a victory Tuesday night when Donald Trump-backed, scandal-tainted nepo baby Representative Mike Collins won a runoff with former college football coach Derek Dooley to become Georgia’s GOP Senate nominee. (Collins is the son of Representative Mac Collins, who served in the house from 1993 to 2005.) Dooley, endorsed by popular Republican governor Brian Kemp, is slightly less MAGA than Collins, and was considered marginally more appealing to the Georgia independents and moderates Ossoff must keep in his column to win reelection.
In the gubernatorial primary, businessman Rick Jackson beat Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, to face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, in November. Jones, who had the backing of both Trump and Kemp, was expected to be the victor.
Trump wasted no time showing us what an ugly (and dumb) campaign this will be by immediately labeling the Democrat “Senator os(jerk)off” on Truth Social. If you’re looking for more evidence that Trump is losing it cognitively, the fact that he couldn’t craft a serviceable insult for nominally the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent is, well, sad. (Even “Senator Jerkoff” would at least have have had a kind of je ne sais quoi… flow?)
Collins has already had troubles of his own. A 2020 election denier, he had to fire his chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, after he made a cruel joke on X about a woman who’d accused NBC’s Matt Lauer of rape and later killed herself. The Daily Beast reports the woman was the wife of a Dooley staffer. Before he was fired, Phillips managed to funnel $10,000 in campaign funds to his girlfriend, who was listed as a Collins “intern,” though her work product in the office never materialized. He is facing a bipartisan Ethics Committee investigation.
Ossoff attacked Collins in a Tuesday night statement as a “notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist currently under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars.” Collins has been repeatedly been attacked for racist and antisemitic social-media posts, including one in which he suggested undocumented migrants should be thrown from helicopters, and another in which he shared a notorious antisemite’s post attacking a reporter for being Jewish.
“Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran war, and for the Trump tariffs,” Ossoff said.
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Collins beat Dooley decisively, 55.5–45.5, but lost to him in college- educated districts and higher income areas. He crushed Dooley in places that voted for Trump, which means the November election is likely to come down to a base strategy, at least for Collins. Ossoff plans to keep reaching out to moderates and independents, as well as Georgia’s Democratic base, the coalition that gave him his surprise victory over Republican Senator David Purdue in 2020.
The Democrat has a big edge in fundraising. As of late May, Collins had raised just under $5 million and had $1.2 million in cash on hand, Politico reported. Ossoff has raised $60 million, and still had $32 million in the bank at April’s end. Senate Majority PAC, the main arm of Senate Democrats, has committed $20 million for television ads supporting Ossoff in the general.
Now that both top Democrats have their official November candidates, they’ll hit the campaign trail for real, and sometimes together. Ossoff and Bottoms already rallied in Atlanta last month, after she easily won her primary. The pair will hit Savannah, Georgia, on June 27.
With the midterm elections now firmly upon us, the question is whether Democratic candidates will do more than merely occupy ballot lines as mild alternatives to the red-hot crisis that is Donald Trump.
As Trump spends over $1 billion a day on a globally destabilizing war on Iran and admits that he doesn’t “think about Americans’ financial situation,” millions across the country are struggling with the surging costs of essentials. Democrats must seize this moment and advance bold, small-“d” populist ideas—not settle for cynical caution that once again snatches defeat from the jaws of victory.
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Onward,
Katrina vanden Heuvel
Editor and Publisher, The Nation