Sen. Jon Ossoff and Rep. Mike Collins traded sharp personal accusations during their first debate Thursday night in Georgia’s closely watched Senate race, with each candidate accusing the other of being compromised by unsavory allies.
Ossoff, the Democratic incumbent, opened with a direct attack on Collins’ character. “Mike Collins has brought dishonor to our state through his personal bigotry and his widely documented ties to white nationalists,” he said, launching a line of attack he returned to repeatedly through the night.
Ossoff pointed to past social media controversies involving Collins, his congressional staff, and his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, who has allegedly shared anti-Jewish and white nationalist content online. At one point Ossoff said, “If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.”
He went further later in the debate, telling Collins, “you’ve hired half the Third Reich to staff your congressional office, and you have promoted neo-Nazi content online,” and accused the congressman of being “in cahoots” with white supremacists.
Collins pushed back directly. “I’ve condemned racism, antisemitism, hate. I don’t care where the source is,” he said, adding, referring to his son-in-law, “And I tell him that too. It’s wrong. We have no place in this world for that.”
Collins then turned the debate toward Ossoff’s donors and allies, criticizing the senator’s silence on progressive figures and his financial backers. “I’ve never heard him say a word about his DSA pick up there [in Michigan] … Abdul El-Sayed. Hasan Piker? How about Reid Hoffman? None of those. He doesn’t denounce anybody or anything or condemn them because he’s part of them,” Collins said.
He specifically highlighted Ossoff’s support from billionaire Reid Hoffman, saying, “One of his megadonors is data center billionaire Reid Hoffman, who is also one of Epstein’s buddies,” and added, “He’s got an answer to those people. He doesn’t have to answer to local people.”
Collins also attacked Ossoff over opposition to President Trump’s tax policy and the senator’s role in last fall’s government shutdown. “Tax cuts are the answer to keeping more money back in people’s pockets … but my opponent doesn’t get that,” Collins said, adding, “My opponent’s a trust fund kid who’s never had a job in his life. He doesn’t understand that. He doesn’t understand business.”
Collins tied the shutdown to disaster relief, saying, “it was just this time last year, that Jon Ossoff shut the government down for 48 days. He shut it down, y’all. Right when we were trying to get that emergency money out for Hurricane Helene so that our farmers and our small communities could repair and prepare for this year’s harvest.”
“He didn’t care about that,” Collins said. “He shut it down because he wanted to defund Border Patrol and ICE … we deserve to know why he left that border wide open.”
The debate comes as the latest RealClearPolitics polling average shows Ossoff holding a nearly 8-point lead over Collins in a race that has drawn national attention as one of the most competitive Senate contests this cycle.
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