This week, Gov. Brian Kemp and failed and fired former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley launched multiple attacks on Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins in the already “combustible” GOP U.S. Senate race.
To kick off the week, Dooley took to social media to slam Collins for his history of buying and selling cryptocurrency as a member of Congress:
Later in the week, the Washington Times ran a column from Dooley where he not-so-slyly denounced Carter and Collins by:
- Slamming Carter and Collins for being “more focused on building their careers in Congress than serving the people who sent them to Washington.”
- Claiming Carter and Collins are in Washington for “power, money and fitting in on the Washington cocktail circuit.”
- Once again criticizing Collins’ cryptocurrency trading by writing that “no member of Congress should be allowed to buy or sell crypto based on inside knowledge of pending legislation or regulations.”
- Slighting Carter’s six-terms in Congress writing that politicians like him “stay too long, do too little, and put their political careers ahead of the people they represent.”
To continue the attacks on Carter and Collins, Gov. Brian Kemp’s political operation aired a new pro-Dooley ad that blames Carter and Collins for the longest government shutdown in history:
- A Kemp-backed group on Thursday released an ad blaming Republican U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins for the government shutdown…
Which prompted an immediate response from Collins who laid into Kemp and Dooley:
- Collins and his allies responded swiftly, questioning why Kemp would “be using dark money to attack Republican members of the Georgia delegation…”
- Collins said on X that not only was the ad contrary to the message from House Speaker Mike Johnson, Senate Majority Leader John Thune and President Donald Trump, “but it’s also disconnected from reality.”
On Friday, Collins made his rebuttal against Kemp and Dooley’s new ad even more personal by telling Dooley’s campaign that “Y’all are as good at this game as Derek is at football.”
“If this week was any preview of the next few months, Georgia Republicans are quickly sliding down a slippery slope of constant attacks and infighting that will only prove to Georgians why each of these candidates should not be anywhere near the U.S. Senate,” said Democratic Party of Georgia Senior Communications Advisor Devon Cruz.