Rep. Mike Collins (R-GA) announced on Monday a campaign to oust Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) from office in the 2026 midterm elections.
Collins highlighted his ties with President Donald Trump in a video announcement, pointing to his support for the White House’s recently passed “big, beautiful” tax cuts bill, and referencing his work this year to pass the Laken Riley Act, which targets illegal immigrants accused of committing violent crimes for removal after one such man was convicted of killing a Georgia nursing student.
”We need a senator who works for Georgia, not the California crazies or New York nut jobs,” Collins said. “I don’t know who Jon Ossoff really works for, but it sure as heck isn’t Georgia.”
“This is Georgia’s moment,” he added in a statement. “This is the people’s time to take back control of this Senate seat, deliver on President Trump’s America First agenda, and kick Jon Ossoff to the curb — and together, that’s exactly what we will do next November.”
Collins represents Georgia’s 10th Congressional District. The congressman revealed earlier this month that he was holding talks with Trump’s team about whether to launch a Senate campaign targeting Ossoff, who sits in one of the most competitive seats in the nation.
His entrance into the race signals that the state’s GOP senate primary could pit a Trump-backed candidate against a candidate picked by Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA), who has held an at times tenuous relationship with the president.
Kemp favors former University of Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley, a longtime friend who has not yet announced a campaign bid.
Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King, a Republican who launched his Senate bid in May, pulled out of the race last week after Kemp warned him he would be backing Dooley.
Rep. Buddy Carter (R-GA) is also vying for the seat, while Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger is rumored to be making a bid.
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Collins, a co-owner of a family trucking firm, is seeking to appeal to blue-collar voters through his campaign. The self-described “MAGA workhouse” lost a bid for Congress in 2014 before reemerging to win a 2022 congressional race.
Collins’s bid for the Senate leaves his House seat open. State Rep. Houston Gaines, an Athens Republican who endorsed Collins’s senate campaign, is viewed as a likely contender to replace the congressman in the conservative northeast Georgia district, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.