ATLANTA (AP) — Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff
of Georgia blasted his potential general election rivals on Sunday,
casting Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley as
unqualified lackeys for President Donald Trump.
“It
doesn’t matter which one wins,” Ossoff told an exuberant crowd at The
Tabernacle, a downtown Atlanta concert venue. “They’re both Trump
puppets.”
Ossoff campaigned with Democratic candidate for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms,
the former Atlanta mayor, in what their advisers described as the first
of many joint rallies intended to showcase them as a team. The
Democrats spoke behind a lectern decked with a placard that read “United
for Georgia.”
It was a contrast to Republicans, who are still
battling amongst themselves to determine their party’s nominees for
Senate and governor. Hours before Ossoff and Bottoms appeared together,
Collins and Dooley spent the afternoon going after each other on the
debate stage ahead of their June 16 runoff.
They pledged their fealty to the president while rarely mentioning
Ossoff, who they describe as too liberal for a state that Trump carried
in two out of his three campaigns.
The competing events, held miles apart in Atlanta, highlight the head
start Ossoff and Georgia Democrats have in a midterm campaign that
could reshape the final two years of Trump’s presidency and mold the
statehouse of this critical battleground state.
Like Ossoff, Bottoms awaits the winner of a Republican
runoff after she trounced her Democratic primary rivals on May 19. And
much like Ossoff, she painted potential opponents Lt. Gov. Burt Jones
and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson with the same brush.
“They
don’t see Trump’s reckless policies as a problem, they see them as a
playbook,” she said, emphasizing inflation, especially for gas and
groceries. “We already know we’re running against Trump’s do-boys.”
Ossoff is the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in
a state Trump carried in 2024, and holding his seat is critical to
Democrats’ chances to flip control of the chamber. Bottoms is trying to
become the first Democrat since 1998 to be elected Georgia governor.
In
the governor’s race, Trump has endorsed Jones, who assisted the
president’s failed effort to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden with
false claims of voter fraud. The president has not taken a side between
Collins and Dooley.
Republicans spar over ethics and experience
With
Trump’s firm grip on the Republican Party, Collins and Dooley showed
only slight policy differences as each sought to carve out reasons
they’d be the better option to defeat Ossoff and bolster the president’s
agenda.
Dooley played up his status as a first-time
candidate and, despite Republicans controlling the House, Senate and
White House, hit Collins as being part of a do-nothing government.
“Congress
is out of control,” he said. “There’s too much careerism, corruption,
nothing’s getting done, Congress is not working for the people the way
it should.”
Yet even as he framed himself as an outsider,
Dooley touted the endorsement from two-term Republican Gov. Brian Kemp
and his own family roots. Dooley’s late father, Vince, was the legendary
University of Georgia football coach and longtime athletics director.
“I grew up in a football family in Athens,” said Dooley, who
was briefly a lawyer before following his father’s career path in
college football and the NFL.
Dooley’s hardest hits on
Collins centered on an ethics investigation into whether the congressman
abused taxpayer funds by hiring the girlfriend of his former chief of
staff for work that the woman allegedly did not perform.
Collins
insisted the issue is simply a “complaint” with no merit, not an actual
House ethics case. A “nothing burger,” the congressman called it.
The Office of Congressional Conduct, after an initial inquiry, has nonetheless referred the matter to the House Ethics Committee, and Dooley noted that Republicans were among those recommending the inquiry continue.
Collins,
the son of a congressman, slapped back at Dooley’s characterization of
Capitol Hill. He described himself as “a conservative workhorse” and
blamed any gridlock specifically on “a broken Senate” — where Ossoff
serves. He touted his sponsorship of the Laken Riley Act, a 2025
immigration law that, among other provisions, requires immigrants
accused of certain crimes to be held without bond.
Dooley
and Collins each offered support for Trump’s tariffs and the war in
Iran. While Collins has previously co-sponsored legislation that would
effectively ban abortion nationwide, Dooley said states should determine
abortion access.
Ossoff wraps Trump and both Republicans together
Ossoff
dismissed Trump as “a failed president and a national disgrace.” He
held up Trump as the worst offender of a corrupt political system,
highlighting his family’s profits from cryptocurrency and foreign real
estate deals. And he lumped Collins and Dooley in with him.
“They’re both corrupt political insiders, and they’re both pro-war, pro-tariff, and pro-cutting your health care,” he said.
Ossoff
hit Collins for the same ethics case that Dooley mentioned. He accused
Dooley of benefiting from his brother’s business dealings with
government.
“The coach’s family got tens of millions of
your tax dollars courtesy of Gov. Kemp, and then poured cash into the
governor’s pack to prop up the coach’s campaign,” Ossoff insisted.
He was alluding to Daniel Dooley being the founder of
CENTEGIX, a firm that manufacturers and installs school security
hardware, including so-called “panic buttons” that contact law
enforcement directly. As governor, Kemp authorized grants for local
systems to bolster security and later signed a law requiring Georgia
classrooms to have direct contact to police.
CENTEGIX
has secured contracts with school systems throughout Georgia, and Daniel
Dooley has donated more than $150,000 to Kemp’s federal PAC that is
backing his brother’s Senate campaign. But Dooley and Kemp advisers note
that CENTEGIX has contracts in 47 states besides Georgia, and other
firms compete for Georgia schools’ business.
Connor
Whitney, a Dooley campaign spokesman, said Ossoff “is already lying
about Derek Dooley” because he “knows Dooley is the candidate who will
send him to the bench this fall.”
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