Georgia GOP Strategists Warn Collins Senate Campaign Against Ossoff May Be Slipping Beyond Recovery
Key Takeaways
- •Recent polls show Ossoff leading Collins by 8 to 9 percentage points in Georgia's Senate race.
- •Ossoff's campaign had raised roughly $98 million this term as of June 30, compared with $7.4 million for Collins since last year.
- •Republican strategists fear Collins' weak campaign could hurt other Georgia GOP candidates, including in the governor's race.
- •Collins' campaign has been damaged by scandals, including a July CNN report that his son-in-law shared antisemitic and white nationalist posts, which Collins condemned.
- •Analysts now view the once-tossup race as favoring Ossoff, boosting Democrats' longshot effort to regain Senate control.
In Georgia — a key swing state that Donald Trump won in 2016 and 2024 but lost in 2020 — Republicans are hoping to unseat incumbent Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff. Georgia has become a genuine Senate battleground in recent cycles: Ossoff himself won his seat in a January 2021 runoff, and fellow Democrat Raphael Warnock won another runoff in December 2022, results that followed the state's shift toward Democrats in federal races even as Republicans remain strong in state-level contests. Yet polls consistently show Ossoff leading the GOP nominee, Rep. Mike Collins, usually by high single digits. According to the Wall Street Journal, Republican strategists fear Collins' ailing campaign may be reaching the point of no return.
Reporters Cameron McWhirter and Terell Wright write in the WSJ: "Most politicos see the race, once considered a tossup, as firmly blue, strengthening Democrats' longshot push to take back the Senate this fall and marking a big disappointment for the GOP."
Jordan Fuchs, a veteran GOP strategist based in Georgia, told the WSJ that due to "lackluster fundraising, ongoing scandals with staffers and family," Collins' campaign is "really having difficulty breaking through."
As McWhirter and Wright explain, "Collins' weak showing has sparked alarm among GOP strategists and pollsters that his run could weigh on other Republican candidates in Georgia, including the race for governor and contests for offices ranging from attorney general to insurance commissioner. Polls show the governor race tight, with Keisha Lance Bottoms aiming to become the first Democrat elected to the post since 1998. Democrats are also pushing a longshot effort to take the GOP-led state House of Representatives, which Republicans have controlled since 2005."
On the campaign trail, Collins has sought to portray Ossoff as hard-left and out of touch with Georgia values. But so far, according to polls, that message is not breaking through.
Nathan Gonzales, editor and publisher of Inside Elections, told the WSJ: "There's a general concern that Collins isn't the right candidate or running the right campaign to defeat Ossoff."
A recent Insider Advantage poll found Collins trailing Ossoff by 8 percent, while a Fabrizio Ward poll showed Ossoff ahead by 9 percent. Ossoff's vehemently anti-Donald Trump message, meanwhile, appears to be energizing his fundraising.
"As of June 30," McWhirter and Wright write, "Ossoff's campaign had raised about $98 million this term, with $77.3 million since the start of 2025. Collins has raised $7.4 million since last year, according to Federal Election Commission filings."
A "summer of scandal," according to the WSJ, is dragging Collins down.
"Collins' campaign has faced a series of scandalous headlines," McWhirter and Wright note. "In July, CNN reported that Collins' son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, had shared posts that promoted antisemitic and white nationalist views. In comments on social media, Scheer said all Muslims should be deported and promoted antisemitic conspiracy theories. Voter and property records show Scheer lives on property owned by Collins. Collins has said that Scheer has no role in his campaign and condemned the comments."
