ATLANTA — A second Republican congressman has joined the race to unseat U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff next year.
In a brief announcement on social media Monday, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, R-Jackson, joined fellow GOP Rep. Buddy Carter, R-St. Simons, in the campaign to replace Democrat Ossoff with a Republican.
Currently, both of Georgia’s Senate seats are held by Democrats, the other by Sen. Raphael Warnock, who will be up for re-election in 2028.
Collins and Carter will face off first in the Republican primary next year. Both have aligned themselves with President Donald Trump and his MAGA base of Republican voters. Last week, another Trump-aligned candidate, Georgia Insurance Commissioner John King, suspended his candidacy, saying he saw “little path forward to the nomination.”
Collins, a trucking executive, announced his entry into the race with the words “I’m in” on X. In a second post, he described himself as a “conservative workhorse” and “America First fighter,” adding, “Chip in some cash and I’ll stay on the gas!”
Collins added a video of himself driving a semi-truck. In the video, he touts Trump’s “big, beautiful bill” and banning “boys from playing girls’ sports.” And he talks of writing the Laken Riley Act, which requires federal immigration agents to arrest, detain and deport immigrants who cross the border illegally and then commit nonviolent crimes.
Riley, a 22-year-old nursing student, was murdered last year while jogging on the University of Georgia campus. Both Ossoff and Warnock supported the bill, which Trump signed in January.
But Collins in his video calls them “California crazies.”
Democrats fired back, calling Collins a “MAGA extremist” aligned with Trump’s “toxic agenda, deep Medicaid cuts, and economic chaos.”