What to know about Georgia’s Jewish senator calling newly minted GOP opponent an antisemite

Explainer

Mike Collins snagged the Republican nomination, putting him across from Democratic incumbent Jon Ossoff in November’s election. Here’s what the contest means for local Jews

Today, 4:21 pmUpdated at 4:52 pm

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JTA — After Rep. Mike Collins won a hard-fought Republican runoff election in Georgia on Tuesday for the party’s Senate nomination in November, his opponent wasted no time going on the offensive.

“Donald Trump’s handpicked candidate Mike Collins is a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist,” Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff posted on social media on Tuesday night.

Ossoff, who is Jewish, did not elaborate on the antisemitism allegation in the post, which continued with other attack lines against Collins. But Collins and some of his senior staff members have faced well-documented past allegations of antisemitism in a state that’s home to an estimated 100,000-plus Jewish adults.

“Whether he’s socializing with a known Nazi, speaking in antisemitic dog whistles, or doubling down after targeting a Jewish reporter, Mike Collins’ record of bigotry and antisemitism speaks for itself,” Valeria Rivadeneira-Crandell, a spokesperson for Ossoff’s campaign, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in a statement.

The Collins campaign did not return a request for comment for this article.

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The Ossoff campaign provided links to multiple incidents. In one instance in 2024, Collins came under fire after replying favorably to a tweet from an antisemitic account that appeared to reference a Washington Post reporter’s Jewish background. “Was never a second thought,” Collins, who has said he runs his own X account, wrote at the time.

Following backlash, including from some Georgia state lawmakers, Collins doubled down, writing, “I guess pointing out that a Washington Post journo excusing crime because she believes USA is on ‘stolen land’ makes her a garbage human is anti-Semitic? Y’all just see stuff that ain’t there.”

Collins, a Trump-endorsed MAGA loyalist with a trollish social media streak in a closely watched swing state, won his runoff with more than 55% of the vote, according to Associated Press tallies. His win came the same night that Trump’s preferred pick for governor of Georgia lost his own GOP primary runoff.

Collins has leaned heavily into nativist proposals and language, including sponsoring a bill to end birthright citizenship. He also approvingly shared a 2024 video of a University of Mississippi fraternity mocking a Black pro-Palestinian protester with monkey noises.

Collins also defended the New York Young Republicans shortly after that organization’s antisemitic group texts were leaked to the press. “I don’t care about some group chat,” Collins tweeted in October, accompanied by a picture of Laken Riley, the Georgia nursing student whose 2024 murder by an undocumented immigrant spurred a GOP-led push for harsher penalties on migrants.

Collins went on to attend a New York Young Republicans gala that also honored far-right German politician Markus Frohnmaier and featured appearances from several antisemitic figures, including the livestreamer Sneako.

The congressman has also come under scrutiny for some of his current and former staffers’ behavior.

Last month a report in Slate, citing leaked text messages, found that Collins’s chief of staff Kip Talley had participated in a group chat with white supremacist influencers Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. Talley wrote in December chats that his goal was to “try and use the levers of the legislative branch” to help Holocaust denier and right-wing activist Charles C. Johnson, who was then incarcerated on contempt of court charges related to falsely presenting himself as an FBI informant.

Talley told his chat mates that he was “reaching out to my people at FBI and DOJ” and “trying to get him out,” referring to Johnson.

Talley, who remains in his role with Collins, told Slate he had “acted solely in my personal capacity after hearing concerns that an acquaintance I have known for years was being mistreated in custody and denied basic medical care.” He added that he “did not act at the direction of Rep. Collins, use official resources, or coordinate with anyone else in the group chat.”

Collins also formerly employed William Paul, who last month made a series of antisemitic comments to Jewish GOP Rep. Mike Lawler. Paul, son of Sen. Rand Paul, had been Collins’ digital director in early 2025 but had not been on the congressman’s staff for nearly a year at the time of his altercation with Lawler.

Amid such comments and associations, Collins has also maintained a resolutely pro-Israel stance within a MAGA movement that is quickly fracturing over Israel. He spoke at a memorial event in his home state marking the one-year anniversary of the bloody October 7, 2023, Hamas invasion of Israel, vowing to “make sure that Israel has the resources to defend themselves,” and he has continued to refer to Israel as “our ally.” Prior to the 2024 election, he tweeted, “I bet money Iran wouldn’t be attacking Israel if Trump was president.”

Ossoff, too, has positioned himself as an Israel supporter, but he has recently voted against some weapons sales to the country. That has upset many Georgia Jewish organizations, who in 2024 penned an open letter — signed by several synagogues, Jewish schools, the local Anti-Defamation League and other groups — opposing the senator’s vote against arms sales.

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