GOP groups ramp up spending to support Mike Collins
On paper, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins’ fundraising is enormously outmatched with his rival, incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff.
He had $2.1 million in cash on hand as of June 30, according to his most recent campaign finance filing. Ossoff had $42.6 million, and he possibly raked in millions more after his comments regarding a top aide to President Donald Trump went viral.
Put another way, Ossoff has raised more money this campaign cycle than any other federal candidate nationally, while Collins barely makes the top 50 among Senate candidates.
But help is on the way. The Senate Leadership Fund, a political committee controlled by Senate Majority Leader John Thune, has committed to spending $44 million in Georgia in hopes of defeating Ossoff.
Republicans say Ossoff, a Democrat seeking a second six-year term, is their No. 1 target for flipping a seat in hopes of preserving their Senate majority. A spokesperson for the Senate Leadership Fund said the group will spend its time showing Georgia voters why he is the wrong man for the job.
“Jon Ossoff is a wannabe celebrity who’s more concerned with his next Hollywood makeover than representing Georgians,” SLF communications director Chris Gustafson said. “Senate Leadership Fund will continue to hammer the hell out of Ossoff’s far-left liberal record.”
The investment on Collins’ behalf comes as he struggles against the popular incumbent who has led in polls from the start. Collins, R-Jackson, has also faced a series of controversies throughout his campaign that has even some fellow Republicans questioning whether he can win in November.
He fired his closest adviser and chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, after he authored an offensive social media post targeting the staffer of a rival. The replacement chief of staff resigned after it became public that he was in a group chat with white nationalists and had lobbied to get a Holocaust denier freed from jail.
Collins’ son-in-law, who lives in a property he owns adjacent to his home, has posted antisemitic conspiracy theories and promoted white nationalist propaganda on social media and has said the right to vote should be taken away from women.
Most recently, a former aide for Collins was found to have posted Ku Klux Klan and Nazi imagery.
On top of all of that, Collins is the subject of a House Ethics Committee investigation of allegations that he was negligent in allowing Phillips to misuse taxpayer funds and hire his girlfriend for a no-show internship.
Collins has denied wrongdoing, and when it comes to the problematic statements of others in his orbit, he has said they do not speak for him or reflect his views.
Still, Ossoff has made Collins’ controversies a central component of his campaign message, calling him a “scandal piñata.”
“Mike Collins is a known bigot under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars, surrounded by neo-Nazis and white nationalists, widely known for his poor character and low integrity, who voted for war and voted to cut your healthcare and is unfit for any elected office,” Ossoff said during a recent rally in Atlanta.
But there is no sign that Republican groups are abandoning Collins’ campaign.
The Senate Leadership Fund will spend most of the money pledged to boost his campaign on TV and digital ads starting around Labor Day, although a portion will also be dedicated to polling and other voter outreach like mail.
A related advocacy group, One Nation, recently put out an ad accusing Ossoff of raising taxes on Georgians by voting against the One Big, Beautiful Bill, which contained a series of targeted tax breaks. That group has pledged $15 million, which will almost all be spent on attack ads.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee, the party’s official campaign arm for Senate races, said it is taking advantage of a recent court ruling that allows political parties to coordinate more extensively with campaigns. A spokesperson for the group declined to share specifics about how that will play out in Georgia but said it is taking place.