Trump endorses Rep. Mike Collins ahead of GOP Senate runoff in Georgia
By Casey Gannon, Logan Schiciano, CNN
(CNN) — President Donald Trump on Sunday waded into the Georgia Republican primary for Senate, endorsing Rep. Mike Collins just days before the congressman faces off against Derek Dooley in a runoff election.
“Mike Collins is a true Friend, Fighter, and WARRIOR, who has been with us from the very beginning, and has my Complete and Total Endorsement to be your next United States Senator,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social.
Dooley, a former football coach at the University of Tennessee, has the support of Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp, who has had a complicated relationship with Trump over the years.
Collins led Dooley, a former football coach at the University of Tennessee, by more than 10 points in last month’s primary election in the fight to face Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in November. The Georgia seat could be key in determining the balance of power in the Senate for the remainder of Trump’s second term.
The men have been vying for Trump’s endorsement for months, with Collins in particular embracing the president’s inner circle and joining them on the campaign trail. Collins has appeared alongside administration officials, like Vice President JD Vance, at events in Georgia over the past year.
Despite Dooley’s efforts, however, he appeared not to have made inroads in his bid for the president’s support ahead of Tuesday’s runoff.
Trump overnight criticized his long history of not voting in presidential elections and appeared to reference a Washington Examiner report that Dooley privately acknowledged that Trump had lost the 2020 election.
“I don’t know Derek Dooley, and neither does anyone else, but he seems like a nice person,” Trump said on Truth Social. “Unfortunately, he has lived outside of Georgia for most of his life, didn’t vote in 2020 or 2016, and said that I lost Georgia in 2020 when, in actuality, the facts have now proven that I won by a lot!”
The president’s endorsement could be a boon for Collins’ campaign, which has seen some controversy in recent weeks, including firing a top adviser who posted a disparaging tweet on the campaign account about the spouse of an adviser to a pro-Dooley PAC.
Collins thanked Trump for the endorsement on Sunday morning and looked ahead to the general election.
“Georgians deserve a U.S. Senator who will fight for them every day to deliver real results, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do. It starts with firing Jon Ossoff in November,” Collins wrote on X.
Following the endorsement of his rival, Dooley said that he has “great respect” for the president and looked forward to working with Trump in the Senate.
But, he argued in a post on X where he highlighted Kemp’s support, “Georgians want a political outsider who can actually beat Jon Ossoff, and someone who is committed to ending the careerism, corruption, and inaction from typical D.C. politicians like Mike Collins.”
The-CNN-Wire
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