Reps. Buddy Carter (R-Ga.) and Mike Collins (R-Ga.) traded barbs while former college football coach Derek Dooley largely stayed above the fray during Sunday’s Georgia Senate GOP primary debate — one day before early voting begins.
Carter, Collins and Dooley alongside former Senate candidate John Coyne and retired Brig. Gen. Jonathan McColumn are vying for the Republican nomination to take on Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.) in Georgia’s Senate primary next month. All five Republican candidates participated in Sunday’s forum as a part of the Atlanta Press Club’s Loudermilk-Young debate series.
The Georgia Senate race, despite its Democratic lean, is largely seen as one of the best pick-up opportunities for Republicans, and President Trump’s possible endorsement looms large ahead of the crowded May 19 GOP primary.
Though the debate was mostly cordial, Carter took several swipes at Collins, particularly over a House Ethics Committee probe into allegations that his congressional office hired an intern who had a relationship with Collins’ then-chief of staff and purportedly did not do any work for the House Republican.
“Mike, we all know, as has been stated, that you’re under federal investigation by your own Republican colleagues for misuse of taxpayer funds … and with your aide,” Carter told Collins during the debate. “If taxpayers can’t trust you to properly steward their money, how can they trust you to be a U.S. senator?”
January reports from the Office of Congressional Conduct (OCC) alleged that Collins and Brandon Phillips — now a top aide for Collins’ campaign — “may have used congressional resources for unofficial or otherwise unauthorized purposes.” The OCC also claimed the congressman “may have retained an employee who did not perform duties commensurate with the compensation the employee received.”
The OCC said that a woman, who had a relationship with Phillips, was paid several times as an “District Office Paid Intern,” but past and current Collins aides said she did not do any work. The report also suggests that the woman was being paid for her role in the congressman’s office while also working at Cox Communications.
Collins’ office responded to the “meritless” allegations at the time, calling the report a “bogus complaint” and “a sad attempt to derail one of Georgia’s most effective conservative legislators in Congress.”
An attorney for Collins and Phillips urged the office to drop the probe, saying referrals stemmed from “two disgruntled, former members of Congressman Collins staff.” They defended Phillips’ decision to hire the woman.
“You know, Buddy, I can tell through the voice that you know how the polling is going out there,” Collins shot back during the debate, calling the issue a “total nothing burger.”
Collins suggested Carter was a hypocrite and “career politician,” noting the Savannah Republican has his own ethics issues. He went on to claim that Carter’s career has “been littered with complaints, crooked land deals.”
“You’ve even tripled your net worth, and all you got to do is go Google, ‘Buddy Carter Ethics FBI,” and you’ll see that,” he continued.
Carter has been hit with two Federal Elections Commission (FEC) ethics complaints over the years.
In 2017, a probe was opened into whether Carter illegally transferred money from his state account to other conduits, who later transferred the funds to his congressional campaign account. Another complaint, filed in 2021, accused the Georgia Republican of violating federal campaign regulations after airing a statewide TV and assembling a campaign team seemingly positioning himself as a Senate candidate. Both of these cases were later dismissed by the FEC.
Still, Carter, who has several pharmaceutical businesses, has faced scrutiny for supporting bills that some observers suggest could have helped the congressman’s own business interests. The House Republican has argued there have been no conflicts of interest, noting his wife owns the businesses now.
Carter also drew criticism when he bought a tract of land in Camden County, saying in 2020 that he had purchased the area to hunt and fish.
He did not include the property in personal financial disclosures to Congress or tell the Federal Aviation Administration about the tract of land when he advocated for a spaceport project near the land, according to Savannah Morning News.
Carter told the outlet that he didn’t need to report the land because it was for personal use.
“You only report real property that you hold if it’s solely for the purpose of investment or the generation of income,” he told the news outlet at the time. “And that property is not for investment, and it’s certainly not for the generation of income.”
The Current noted that Carter later looked to sell his property when the spaceport project fell through.
Dooley, who has Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp’s (R) endorsement and is polling in third place, laid low in Sunday’s debate.
Although, the former Tenneessee Volunteers coach did take an implicit jab at both Collins and Carter, the two frontrunners, arguing that Washington, D.C. needed a political outsider in the Senate.
“It’s time we start sending a different kind of leadership to Washington, because Congress is not working for the people the way it used to,” Dooley said during his closing remarks.
“We’ve seen a rise in careerism, we’ve seen a rise in corruption, but mostly it’s the inaction, where we’re yelling and screaming and we’re not working together to deliver results for the people of Georgia.”
The debate was largely respectful, as Collins and Carter clearly sought to align themselves with President Trump, lauding the president’s military operation in Iran as well as his pushes to acquire Greenland.
While Dooley also took some opportunities to compliment the president, he used the phrase “Georgia First” to describe his political vision instead of Trump’s “America First,” which Collins and Carter both invoked.
Collins and Carter as well as Dooley are seen as the frontrunners in the race for the GOP nomination to take on Ossoff in November, with a primary set for May 19.
Recent polling, however, has shown Dooley trailing behind the two congressman, and he didn’t secure a standout moment o elevate his posture during Sunday’s debate.
Given this crowded Republican primary field, it appears unlikely that one candidate will receive at least half of the vote outright in May, and the election will likely advance to a June 16 runoff.
