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ATLANTA — <\/span>Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff<\/a> of Georgia blasted his potential general election rivals on Sunday, casting Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley as unqualified lackeys for President Donald Trump<\/a>. <\/p>\n \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter which one wins,\u201d Ossoff told an exuberant crowd at The Tabernacle, a downtown Atlanta concert venue. \u201cThey\u2019re both Trump puppets.\u201d<\/p>\n Ossoff campaigned with Democratic candidate for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms<\/a>, the former Atlanta mayor, in what their advisers described as the first of many joint rallies intended to showcase them as a team. The Democrats spoke behind a lectern decked with a placard that read \u201cUnited for Georgia.\u201d<\/p>\n It was a contrast to Republicans, who are still battling amongst themselves to determine their party’s nominees for Senate and governor. Hours before Ossoff and Bottoms appeared together, Collins and Dooley spent the afternoon going after each other on the debate stage ahead of their June 16 runoff. <\/p>\n They pledged their fealty to the president while rarely mentioning Ossoff, who they describe as too liberal for a state that Trump carried in two out of his three campaigns.<\/p>\n The competing events, held miles apart in Atlanta, highlight the head start Ossoff and Georgia Democrats have in a midterm campaign that could reshape the final two years of Trump\u2019s presidency and mold the statehouse of this critical battleground state.<\/p>\n Like Ossoff, Bottoms awaits the winner of a Republican runoff after she trounced her Democratic primary rivals on May 19. And much like Ossoff, she painted potential opponents Lt. Gov. Burt Jones and billionaire businessman Rick Jackson with the same brush.<\/p>\n \u201cThey don\u2019t see Trump\u2019s reckless policies as a problem, they see them as a playbook,\u201d she said, emphasizing inflation, especially for gas and groceries. \u201cWe already know we\u2019re running against Trump\u2019s do-boys.\u201d<\/p>\n Ossoff is the only Senate Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump carried in 2024, and holding his seat is critical to Democrats’ chances to flip control of the chamber. Bottoms is trying to become the first Democrat since 1998 to be elected Georgia governor.<\/p>\n In the governor’s race, Trump has endorsed Jones, who assisted the president’s failed effort to overturn his 2020 defeat to Joe Biden with false claims of voter fraud. The president has not taken a side between Collins and Dooley. <\/p>\n With Trump\u2019s firm grip on the Republican Party, Collins and Dooley showed only slight policy differences as each sought to carve out reasons they\u2019d be the better option to defeat Ossoff and bolster the president\u2019s agenda.<\/p>\n Dooley played up his status as a first-time candidate and, despite Republicans controlling the House, Senate and White House, hit Collins as being part of a do-nothing government.<\/p>\n \u201cCongress is out of control,\u201d he said. \u201cThere\u2019s too much careerism, corruption, nothing\u2019s getting done, Congress is not working for the people the way it should.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet even as he framed himself as an outsider, Dooley touted the endorsement from two-term Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and his own family roots. Dooley\u2019s late father, Vince, was the legendary University of Georgia football coach and longtime athletics director.<\/p>\n \u201cI grew up in a football family in Athens,\u201d said Dooley, who was briefly a lawyer before following his father\u2019s career path in college football and the NFL.<\/p>\n Dooley\u2019s hardest hits on Collins centered on an ethics investigation into whether the congressman abused taxpayer funds by hiring the girlfriend of his former chief of staff for work that the woman allegedly did not perform. <\/p>\n Collins insisted the issue is simply a \u201ccomplaint\u201d with no merit, not an actual House ethics case. A \u201cnothing burger,\u201d the congressman called it. <\/p>\n