by Dave Williams | Jun 8, 2021 | Capitol Beat News Service
ATLANTA – A second Republican candidate has entered the race to succeed U.S. Rep. Jody Hice, R-Greensboro, who is leaving Congress to run for Georgia secretary of state.
Mike Collins, a small business owner from Jackson, announced Tuesday that he will seek the Republican nomination in Georgia’s 10th Congressional District in next May’s primary.
Collins is positioning himself as a strong supporter of former President Donald Trump and brings to the race the endorsement of former U.S. House Speaker Newt Gingrich of Georgia.
“I’m running for Congress because the radical left is out of control,” Collins said. “The liberals in Washington, D.C., won’t stop until someone stands up to them, and for hard-working Georgians.
“I’m pro-Trump, pro-life and will protect our Second Amendment rights. I’m running to fight for the families and small business owners in my community and around the country. I won’t bow to the woke mob’s cancel culture or [Speaker] Nancy Pelosi’s job-killing, gun-grabbing agenda.”
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Collins has owned and operated several successful businesses during the last three decades, including a trucking company he has grown from a single truck to a fleet of 115. He is a board member of the Georgia Motor Trucking Association.
Collins graduated from Georgia State University with a business degree.
He joins another businessman, Matt Richards, in the 10th District contest. Richards, a Gwinnett County native who now lives in Barrow County, owns a demolition company.
Like Collins, Richard characterizes himself as a conservative and a political outsider.
The 10th Congressional District covers a large swath of rural areas and small cities between Atlanta and Augusta, including Athens and Milledgeville.
Hice and former Alpharetta Mayor David Belle Isle are challenging incumbent Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who was censured by the Georgia GOP at last weekend’s party convention for refusing to help Trump overturn the 2020 presidential election results in Georgia.
President Joe Biden carried the Peach State by 11,779 votes, the first Democrat to do so since Bill Clinton in 1992.
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