And Republicans are pretty worried about defeating Sen. Jon Ossoff.
Illustration by Lauren Bulbin/POLITICO (source images via Getty Images and iStock)
Georgia Republicans finally have their Senate nominee. Now comes the hard part.
A bruised GOP Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.) will go head to head against Democratic incumbent Sen. Jon Ossoff, a prolific fundraiser who many Republicans worry will be difficult to beat this November.
While Republicans spent months turning their fire on each other, Ossoff has steadily built his campaign infrastructure — and refined his general election message.
“Anyone who’s being honest knows it’s going to be a very tough race to unseat Jon Ossoff. All the polling shows Georgia as leaning Democrat, not toss-up,” Jason Shepherd, the former Cobb County Republican chair, told POLITICO before the Tuesday result. He had supported Collins’ opponent, former football coach Derek Dooley.
Heading into the midterms, Ossoff was widely considered one of the most vulnerable Democratic candidates in a state Trump handily won in 2024. But since then, the senator has stockpiled mountains of cash, sailed through his primary unchallenged, and has positioned himself as someone who stays above the fray of partisan cable news hits.
“Ossoff is tricky, he’s good at raising money, he does not step in it,” said one senior RNC official before the runoff, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the midterm landscape.
The race is expected to be one of the most closely watched Senate contests of the cycle. Holding onto Ossoff’s seat is key to Democrats’ narrow path to winning back control of the Senate, while Republicans see flipping it as one of their best opportunities to expand their majority. The state has also become one of the country’s premier battlegrounds, serving as an early test of the forces — and people — that could shape 2028.
Several Republican strategists and operatives say that some of Collins’ hardline policy stances, plus an ongoing House ethics investigation against him, may make him vulnerable to Democrats’ attacks.
They also worry Collins has a lot of catching up to do in the money race.
Collins raised $4.9 million and had just $1.2 million in cash on hand as of May 27, according to fundraising reports. By comparison, Ossoff has raised $60 million and had $32 million left in the bank at the end of April.
“It’s a real severe uphill battle,” said one Republican operative involved in races up and down the ballot in Georgia, granted anonymity to speak candidly about the state’s marquee race.
Collins will require significant help from outside groups, the operative said, but it’s not clear how much will come: “What is the willingness to go all in for Mike Collins? Do they think he can win? Do they think they can get this done? What are those resources going to look like? Because he’s not going to fundraise — I don’t think — very well.”
Collins’ allies argue the bitter primary has prepared him for a brutal general election.
“Jon Ossoff has been, always will be, the most vulnerable Democrat up for reelection. Nobody is more battle tested than Mike Collins after this primary,” said a person close to Collins’ campaign.
Some Democrats suggest they got their preferred candidate in Collins — rather than Dooley, who had the backing of popular Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, which could have helped broaden his appeal across the state.
“Dooley is much less of a political extremist than Collins is and Collins is on the record voting directly for the policies that have devastated Georgians,” said one person aligned with a Democratic PAC involved in Senate elections, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “As for an [opposition] research perspective and in our effort to air out his dirty laundry we have a lot more ammunition with Collins.”
Even President Donald Trump, who made a last-minute endorsement for Collins ahead of Tuesday’s election, had grilled him about his strict stance on abortion, pressing him on how he could win in a general election in one of the nation’s premier swing states. Abortion has become a political vulnerability for Republicans in the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade.
Collins already appeared to soften his stance in the final stretch of the runoff. During a 2022 debate for his current House seat, Collins said, “I have always stated and I’ve always been and always will be 100 percent pro-life, period. No exceptions.” Recently on the campaign trail, he said he supports Georgia’s six-week abortion ban, which includes exceptions in cases of rape, incest or to protect the life of the mother.
Ossoff was quick to hammer Collins after his victory, tying him to Trump and assailing him as a “notorious bigot.”
“Collins, who is only a congressman because his daddy was a congressman, voted to double health insurance premiums for more than a million Georgians, for the Iran War, and for the Trump tariffs,” Ossoff said in a statement.
But Democrats know Collins still poses a real threat, even with the wind at their backs. Ossoff won by a razor-thin margin in 2020 over former Republican Sen. David Perdue — a contest that went to a runoff — and Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock (D) won by less than 3 points over Trump-endorsed former football star Herschel Walker in 2022.
“Democrats understand that if a Herschel Walker can get to 49 percent, you know, this is still going to be a battle, and this is still going to be a fight ahead,” said Andrew Heaton, a Democratic strategist and former campaign aide for Warnock.
National Democrats say they are planning to hit Collins hard. Senate Majority PAC, the main Senate Democratic super PAC, has committed $20 million for television ads supporting the incumbent in the general.
National Republican groups have largely been waiting in the wings to get involved in Georgia, held back by Trump’s long silence on the Senate race and a messy, drawn-out primary to determine their nominee. Now, with Collins knighted as their standard bearer to lead the ticket, groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee and the Senate Leadership Fund will face pressure to start spending — fast.
Those two leading Republican groups have already raised $1 million in a “first-of-its-kind joint fundraising operation” put aside for the Republican nominee in Georgia, POLITICO first reported. That’s in addition to the $44 million SLF already committed to Georgia’s Senate race. Collins could also receive a boost from sharing a ticket with billionaire Rick Jackson, who won the GOP gubernatorial primary Tuesday — and has already signaled plans to invest heavily across the state.
“We will have a large field team and field operation. Collins will benefit greatly,” one person familiar with Jackson’s campaign said Tuesday night, granted anonymity to discuss not-yet-finalized plans.
A second Georgia-based Republican operative said “it’s imperative” that resources start flowing to the Senate race. “The general election campaign starts right now, we don’t have a moment to lose,” the operative said just minutes after the primary was called for Collins.
Collins used his victory speech on Tuesday night to preview his attacks on Ossoff’s voting record, tying the Democrat to liberal policies unpopular with many Georgia Republicans.
“This choice in this race is crystal clear: You got a businessman who has delivered results in both the private sector and in Washington ... or an out-of-touch, far left liberal who has raised your taxes, made your life more expensive, less safe, and left Georgia worse off,” he said.
How Collins handles the early days of the general election will be key to convincing the skeptics, said one Georgia-based operative unaffiliated with the Senate race, granted anonymity to discuss the landscape.
“A lot of people don’t think he’s gonna have a chance, and that may end up working to his advantage,” the operative said. “I think the race is gonna get very tight once we get into the summer and early fall, but I think that there’s going to be a lot of eyeballs to see how he performs out of the gate.”
Buoyed by the late-stage Trump endorsement, Collins emerged from the primary as the candidate carrying the MAGA mantle. He earned support from several prominent House Republicans, in addition to the powerful Club for Growth and Turning Point Action. His victory on Tuesday night underscored his strength in Georgia’s rural, heavily Republican regions.
But to compete in November, he’ll need to go beyond the MAGA base and win over Dooley’s coalition, which was built on the support of more moderate voters in the metro Atlanta area. Collins said in his victory speech Tuesday that he had spoken to both Kemp and Dooley.
“It’s an uphill battle against Senator Ossoff, but it would have been an uphill fight for anyone,” said Buzz Brockway, a GOP strategist and former state representative in Georgia. “Now Collins needs to unite the GOP behind him, which I think he can do.”