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Georgia Goes MAGA in the Republican Senate Primary

A Trump-backed, scandal-tainted nepo baby will challenge Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff in the fall.

Representative Mike Collins (R-GA), now the Republican candidate for Senate, gives a speech during a runoff election-night party in Jackson, Georgia.

Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff won a victory Tuesday night when Donald Trump-backed, scandal-tainted nepo baby Representative Mike Collins won a runoff with former college football coach Derek Dooley to become Georgia’s GOP Senate nominee. (Collins is the son of Representative Mac Collins, who served in the house from 1993 to 2005.) Dooley, endorsed by popular Republican Governor Brian Kemp, is slightly less MAGA than Collins, and was considered marginally more appealing to the Georgia independents and moderates Ossoff must keep in his column to win reelection.

In the gubernatorial primary, businessman Rick Jackson beat Lieutenant Governor Burt Jones, to face Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms, the former mayor of Atlanta, in November. Jones, who had the backing of both Trump and Kemp, was expected to be the victor.

Trump wasted no time showing us what an ugly (and dumb) campaign this will be by immediately labeling the Democrat “Senator os(jerk)off” on Truth Social. If you’re looking for more evidence that Trump is losing it cognitively, the fact that he couldn’t craft a serviceable insult for nominally the most vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbent is, well, sad. (Even “Senator Jerkoff” would at least have have had a kind of je ne sais quoi… flow?)

Collins has already had troubles of his own. A 2020 election denier, he had to fire his chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, after he made a cruel joke on X about a woman who’d accused NBC’s Matt Lauer of rape and later killed herself. The........

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