AJC: “But the problem for Collins is that the hate he says he condemns is coming from his own backyard […] The pattern is impossible to miss.”
A new column in the AJC highlighted how neo-Nazi propagandist David Alan Scheer is continuing to film and post “white nationalist and antisemitic” content from GOP U.S. Senate nominee Mike Collins’ own backyard.
Collins’ “close ties” to Scheer are the latest in the long list of scandals dragging down his U.S. Senate campaign after it was also reported that his office briefed notorious white nationalists – including Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer – to get a Holocaust denier out of jail. Collins is also under federal investigation by the bipartisan House Ethics Committee for allowing his former chief of staff, who had been convicted of criminal battery, to illegally funnel thousands of federal tax dollars to a girlfriend who did no work for the office.
In previous weeks, Collins “abruptly ended” a press conference after he refused to answer reporter questions about his connections to neo-Nazi propagandist David Alan Scheer.
AJC: The hate growing in Mike Collins’ own backyard
By Patricia Murphy | August 26, 2026
KEY EXCERPTS
- You can’t pick your family, but you can pick your neighbors — especially if your neighbor lives on your property and posts white nationalist and antisemitic social media content to 1.5 million followers.
- But […] what if the extremist content runs the gamut from run-of-the-mill misogyny to deeply offensive racism so profound it relies on quoting and praising Adolph Hitler’s theory of leadership?
- That’s the reality facing U.S. Rep. Mike Collins […] just weeks after Collins wrapped up the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff in November.
- Collins took more than a week to respond publicly to CNN’s revelations about Scheer’s white supremacist messages. […]
- Asked at a news conference later in the month whether he would denounce Scheer’s statements, Collins […] quickly walked away.
- […] But the problem for Collins is that the hate he says he condemns is coming from his own backyard […] And it hasn’t stopped. […]
- […] In a podcast last month, he praised a quote from someone he described as “a particularly spicy individual, a very controversial individual to say the least.” The “spicy individual” was Hitler.
- Other videos and writings focus on immigrants, women, and minorities.
- In a YouTube video two weeks ago, Scheer said prejudice is essential, “because looks don’t lie.” Last month, he declared that if he were the devil, “I would convince women that the greatest contribution they can have in society is economic input.”
- More concerning than all of that, though, are Scheer’s repeated statements that he and others like him are “starting a movement” that requires young, white Christian men to be prepared to mobilize and fight.
- “There’s no voting our way out of this, at least not at this point in time,” he wrote on Telegram last October. “We must get organized. Rally your brothers and spread critical information. Train for physical confrontation … Things are gonna get a whole lot uglier before we can make them better.”
- Incredibly, Scheer has only increased his presence online, even as [Mike Collins] launched a U.S. Senate campaign and has recently been forced to bat down one controversy after another.
- […] Collins also had to fire his first chief of staff, Brandon Phillips, who had been accused of violent behavior before being targeted by a congressional ethics investigation for allegedly paying his girlfriend for a no-show internship.
- Collins then had to fire his replacement chief of staff after revelations that the staffer had promised to use the weight of Collins’ congressional office to help free a Holocaust denier from jail. The pattern is impossible to miss. […]
- The best thing Collins could do for his campaign […] and for the state he says he wants to serve is to get Scheer to take down his [comments] and root out the hate closest to his own home.
###