Georgia Congressman Mike Collins kicked off his 2026 U.S. Senate campaign with a video that featured a glaring error: the name of his own state was misspelled.
At the conclusion of the launch video, posted to X on July 27, the screen flashed a campaign slogan that read, “Georiga, Let’s Ride” — transposing two letters in the name of the state he hopes to represent in the Senate. The video remained on his official X account as of Tuesday evening, drawing immediate mockery from critics and social media users alike.
“Where is Georiga?” one commenter asked, while another wrote, “At a minimum, you should know how to spell your own state’s name if you’re running to represent it.”
Collins, 58, has served Georgia’s 10th congressional district since 2023 and is running for the Republican nomination to challenge Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff, the only Democrat up for re-election in 2026 from a state won by President Trump in 2024.
On Monday, Collins’ campaign uploaded a second video to YouTube — this time omitting the “Georgia, Let’s Ride” slogan entirely.
A staunch ally of President Trump, Collins co-owns a family trucking company and previously ran for Congress in 2014. His father, Mac Collins, was a longtime Georgia congressman who unsuccessfully sought a U.S. Senate seat in 2004.
Collins has embraced a combative political style and has stirred controversy in recent years. In early 2024, he was briefly suspended from X after suggesting a suspect should be transported via “Pinochet Air,” a reference to executions under Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. He was also criticized for amplifying a post from an antisemitic account, according to the Associated Press.
In March 2024, Collins introduced the Laken Riley Act — named for a Georgia college student killed by an illegal immigrant — which was signed into law by President Trump in January 2025. The law mandates that any non-citizen charged with theft be detained by ICE. It passed with bipartisan support.
As Collins now mounts his Senate bid, his campaign launch has already become a case study in how small mistakes — like a single misspelled word — can quickly overshadow a major political moment.
