Republican Georgia Rep. Mike Collins announced his long-expected entrance into Georgia’s contested Republican Senate primary Monday morning.
Collins, a two-term lawmaker who has cultivated a reputation as a legislative workhorse, is running to unseat incumbent Democratic Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff during the midterms. Collins is likely to tout his ties to the MAGA movement and his successful push to pass the Laken Riley Act, illegal immigration crackdown legislation President Donald Trump signed into law in January, as he vies for the Republican nomination.
“We need a senator who works for Georgia, not the California crazies or New York nutjobs,” Collins said in his campaign announcement video. “I don’t know who Jon Ossoff really works for but it sure as hell isn’t Georgia.”
Collins’ entry into the primary contest comes as Trump and the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC), Senate Republicans’ campaign arm, have yet to back a candidate. Georgia is seen as a prime pickup opportunity for Republicans during the midterms given the state’s Republican leanings and Trump defeating former Vice President Kamala Harris in the state last November.
Republican Georgia Governor Brian Kemp, who was previously viewed as the party’s top recruit for the race, will back former football coach Derek Dooley, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. Dooley is a political newcomer who has never held elected office. He is expected to jump in the race in the coming weeks.
Kemp reportedly told Collins and the other GOP contenders already in the race that he would be endorsing Dooley, leading Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King to suspend his campaign Thursday, the AJC reported. King said there was “little path forward to the nomination” in a post on the social media platform X.
Collins is also expected to emphasize his blue collar background and his career in the trucking industry during the primary contest.
“In trucking, you got to deliver,” Collins also says in the campaign announcement video. “It’s time to send a trucker to the U.S. Senate to steamroll the radical left, deliver on President Trump’s America First agenda and put the people of Georgia back in the driver’s seat.”
Republican Georgia Rep. Buddy Carter, who is partly self-funding his campaign, is the only other well-known candidate in the race thus far.
Ossoff is expected to raise a formidable amount of cash over the coming year to prevent Republicans from flipping the seat. The Georgia Democrat has roughly $15.5 million in the bank, according to a recent Federal Election Commission filing.
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