President Donald Trump has endorsed GOP Rep. Mike Collins in the Georgia Senate race, giving the two-term congressman a last-minute boost ahead of Tuesday’s primary runoff.
Collins is facing former football coach Derek Dooley in a Tuesday runoff after the May 19 primary, when none of the GOP candidates won a majority of the vote. Collins finished first in that contest, with 40% of the vote to Dooley’s 30%, followed by Rep. Buddy Carter with 25%.
Both Dooley and Collins had been vying for Trump’s endorsement, but some Georgia Republicans have long believed that Trump was more likely to back Collins, who was pitching himself as a staunch Trump ally.
Collins often noted on the campaign trail and on the airwaves that he authored the Laken Riley Act, an immigration enforcement measure that was the first bill Trump signed into law in his second term.
Collins’ campaign launched a TV ad during the runoff where Collins says, “I stand with President Trump,” and features footage of Trump praising Collins as “fantastic.” Collins also recently hired some of Trump’s top campaign aides, Axios reported.
Dooley, though, has had a major backer on his side in Gov. Brian Kemp, who has clashed with Trump over the president’s false claims that the 2020 election was stolen.
The governor is personally close with the Dooley family — Dooley’s father was a legendary University of Georgia football coach — and Kemp and his wife have continued to join Dooley on the campaign trail ahead of the runoff. Kemp also appeared in Dooley campaign ads, which have pitched Dooley as a political outsider who will “work with President Trump and always put Georgia first.”
Dooley has outspent Collins on the airwaves since the primary, according to AdImpact, but Collins has noted that he was outspent in the primary, too, arguing that he has strong grassroots support.
The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will face Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only Democratic senator running for re-election in a state Trump won in 2024.
“Mike has to beat a Republican Opponent before he gets to Ossoff,” Trump said in his social media post endorsing Collins. “I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person.”
A trucking company owner who was first elected to Congress in 2022 and whose father is a former member of Congress, Collins has created some controversies during his career.
The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported that Collins recently fired a longtime staffer, Brandon Phillips, after Phillips posted on Collins’ campaign X account describing a GOP consultant reportedly advising a pro-Dooley PAC as “Matt Lauer’s sloppy seconds.” The consultant, Luke Thompson, is married to Brooke Nevils, who accused the former TODAY show anchor of rape. Lauer denied the accusation. NBC News fired Lauer in 2017 after that allegation and others.
Phillips was also at the center of a House Ethics Committee probe into whether Collins misused congressional funds by paying Phillips campaign work and by employing Phillips’ girlfriend, who did not do work for the office. Collins has said the allegations are “bogus.”
The winner of Tuesday’s runoff will face Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only Democratic senator running for re-election in a state Trump won in 2024.
