Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) failed to answer a question about who won the 2020 election, said tariffs were making trade fair for Georgia manufacturers, and attempted to elicit sympathy for his own family when asked to condemn the white nationalist views held by his son-in-law during the first Georgia-wide U.S. Senate debate on Thursday night.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) repeatedly took the offensive while facing off against Collins during the debate, which was hosted and televised by Atlanta News First.
Ossoff returned frequently to the extremists in Collins’ circle, comparing his congressional office to the German Nazi regime when answering a question about the cost of data centers on Georgia families and elevating a data center development provision in Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill.
“That’s the problem, Mike. It’s not just that you hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office, and you have promoted neo-Nazi content online,” Ossoff said. “It’s that you’re robbing your constituents to subsidize your donors.”
Collins’ campaign has been dogged by repeated scandals, as reporters continue to uncover people in his orbit who hold openly far-right and white supremacist ideology. His office also faces an ethics investigation into whether Collins’ former chief of staff used taxpayer money to employ his girlfriend as an internin a shadow position. The congressman has also repeatedly attracted attention for his own aggressive social media presence, which has seen him interact with anti-Jewish accounts, platform violent far-right memes, and voice approval of videos depicting racist behavior. Collins has also falsely claimed that President Donald Trump won the state of Georgia in the 2020 presidential election.
Even as recently as Wednesday afternoon, the Daily Beast broke news that at least two Collins campaign leaders have both also served in leadership positions at American Patriots USA, a far-right group founded by a former Ku Klux Klan leader who was convicted of beating a Black man in 1993.
In response to Ossoff’s onslaught, Collins called the Democratic senator a radical, parrotting familiar Republican talking points about the Democratic Party. On balance, however, the congressman appeared completely unprepared to acknowledge questions posed to him by debate moderators and attacks launched at him by Ossoff.
Here are five takeaways from Thursday’s debate.
Collins Sidestepped When Asked to Condemn White Supremacy
Given the chance by the debate moderator to denounce his son-in-law’s white supremacist views, Collins instead turned the attention on himself and his own family, suggesting Ossoff was responsible for a New York man who threatened to kill Collins and his son-in-law.
“What specifically have you said to your daughter and son in law about his posts and will you once and for all denounce white supremacy?” moderator Rick Folbaum asked.
“That’s my family,” Collins began. “The craziness that Jon Ossoff has been spewing out there — I actually had a crazy person get put in jail this weekend.”
He then weakly said he “condemned racism, antisemitism, hate.” Collins also said he’s told his son-in-law those things. “It’s wrong. We have no place for that.”
Ossoff Was Relentless About Collins’ ‘Personal Bigotry’
Here are just a few moments that would have made even a person with knowledge of the Georgia Senate race and Collins’ background gasp out loud:
“Mike Collins brought dishonor to our state through his personal bigotry and his widely documented ties to white nationalists,” Ossoff said in his opening statement.
After Collins’ response to a question practically begging him to condemn white supremacy began with, “That’s my family,” Ossoff highlighted Collins’ own neo-Nazi flirtations.
“Imagine running for Senate while neo-Nazi propaganda is disseminated to an audience of millions from your home,” Ossoff said.” That’s Mike Collins.”
Much of the Civil Rights movement was animated by Black Americans’ fight to secure the right to vote. While answering a question about modern voting rights in Georgia, Ossoff evoked the late Congressman John Lewis.
“If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club,” Ossoff said.
Collins Conceded Legislative Failure More than Once
Adding to the feeling that Collins wasn’t quite ready for primetime were the instances where he appeared to acknowledge his, and his party’s, own legislative failure.
He admitted, “We don’t do right by our farmers,” when asked which farm bill priorities he’d support.
He said, “rural hospitals, major problems,” when addressing the impacts of funding cuts on healthcare in rural Georgia.
And he agreed with Ossoff, saying price transparency was needed to help keep healthcare costs and insurance premiums down.
Ossoff Said Georgia Voter ID Law is Good
In 2021, Ossoff introduced a federal voting rights bill that allowed Americans to challenge laws that make it harder to vote. He reintroduced that bill this past summer. But on Thursday night, he seemed to express support for state laws.
“Georgia has voter ID, and that’s good,” Ossoff said.
Collins supports the SAVE Act, a sweeping federal voting bill that would require proof of citizenship and identification, with the effect, experts say, of suppressing many eligible voters.
Affordability Was Still Front And Center
Both Ossoff and Collins focused on the cost of living for voters, though their approaches to tackling the issue were predictably different. Collins, the son of a former congressman and owner of a trucking company, attempted to establish himself as a down-to-earth businessman in contrast to Ossoff, who he framed as wealthy and out of touch. But when asked about provisions that helped affordability in Trump’s Big Beautiful Bill, which Collins supported, he focused primarily on tax cuts for businesses.
Collins highlighted corporate tax write-offs and cited trickle down economics concepts when touting ways the Big Beautiful Bill helped people’s personal finances.
“I believe in keeping more money in the private sector, in people’s pockets,” he said.
Ossoff took Collins to task on myriad affordability issues, hammering on the congressman’s support for Trump’s tariffs, but also on the impacts of Medicaid cuts on healthcare premiums and rural hospitals, and the Iran War’s effects on gas and diesel prices for consumers and farmers.
“Georgia voters deserve to know why [Collins] voted over and over and over again for those tariffs,” Ossoff said. “How have these tariffs helped us? Collins should answer. Let’s hear it.”
I am in the Kansas City area. I am watching the Hamilton Marshall ads up close and personal. A couple of observations. 1. Hamilton has a lot of money for ads, something unexpected from a Democrat. 2. About the only thing Marshall can pin on Hamilton is 20 years ago a guy at a camp Hamilton’s church ran was a pedophile. Marshall claims Hamilton looked the other way. Hamilton responds that he didn’t. The church turned the guy into the police and the guy was charged. He also responds by saying the Marshall opposed release of the Epstein files. He works to protect the powerful men and not regular people.
I don’t know about the facts of the 20 year old case but it occurs to me that everybody knows that rich men are behind covering up the Epstein files. It was stupid to go after Hamilton when the offical Administration position on the Epstein files is so damn public and we all know that Trump and several of his friends are being protected.
By the way the Republicans are smart to pull their money from Collins. He is toast. Ossoff is a brilliant candidate.
Yeah, about that trade and tariff policy … Dalton, GA bills itself as the “carpet capital of the world.” It makes a lot of carpets. And has sent a significant chunk of that output to the Canadian market.
Yeah, how’s that looking now, boys?
Well, if the carpet business hits hard times, at least there’s another bright spot in Dalton’s industrial landscape: solar power. Specifically helped by the 2021 Solar Energy Manufacturing for America Act, a bill by … wait for it … Jon Ossoff.
Now, compare and contrast with the anti-solar provisions in that Big Baleful Bill supported by Collins.
Yeah.
Dalton, Georgia is part of the 14th congressional district, which Cook has as R+19. It is deep angry crimson red. But they ain’t too happy with what the patient has been doing to them.