Fox News published a poll this week showing Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff beating Trump-endorsed Republican Mike Collins by 13 points in Georgia, which is a sentence that contains the words 'Fox News' and 'Trump-endorsed' and still ends with Democrats winning. Nearly a quarter of non-MAGA Republicans say they'll vote for the Democrat. Let that one breathe for a second.
The Numbers That Should Terrify Republicans
The Fox News poll, conducted June 23-27 with 1,002 Georgia registered voters, finds Ossoff pulling 56% support to Collins' 43%. That is not a close race. That is a man getting his shoes shined while his opponent looks for the building.
Among voters who say they are motivated to vote, Ossoff still leads by 11 points. Among independents, he leads by 68% to what we can only assume is a deeply uncomfortable number for the Collins campaign. Among women under 45, it's 66% for Ossoff. The demographic math here is not ambiguous.
Ossoff won his seat in January 2021 by just over a percentage point in a runoff. He is currently polling thirteen points ahead of his Republican opponent. That is not an incremental improvement. That is a man who has apparently spent five years becoming significantly more popular in a state Trump carried by two points in 2024.
Collins Can't Even Win His Own Team
Here is the part where it gets genuinely embarrassing for the GOP. While Ossoff has 96% of Democrats backing him, Collins is only pulling 89% of Republicans. That gap is not nothing. In a state decided by margins this thin historically, handing the other side seven percent of your own base is the political equivalent of showing up to a gunfight and accidentally shooting yourself in the foot while holstering your weapon.
The motivation gap makes it worse. Among Collins supporters, 44% say their vote is primarily against Ossoff rather than for Collins. Only 56% are actually voting for the guy. Compare that to Ossoff, where more than 8 in 10 of his supporters say their vote is for him. One of these candidates has a coalition. The other has a collection of people who really don't like the other guy.
And then there's this gem buried in the Fox News crosstabs: nearly a quarter of non-MAGA Republicans say they'll vote for Ossoff. Twenty-three percent. These are registered Republicans, telling a pollster they will cross party lines to vote for a Democratic incumbent in a Senate race. That is not a base problem. That is a roof-is-on-fire problem.
The Trump Albatross Around Collins' Neck
Collins got a last-minute Trump endorsement in the June GOP primary runoff that helped him defeat Derek Dooley, who had the backing of Georgia Governor Brian Kemp. In a primary, that's a winning play. In a general election in Georgia in 2026, the Fox News poll suggests it may be an anchor.
Trump's favorable rating in Georgia sits at 42%, down five points from 47% in the 2024 Georgia exit survey. More than half of Georgia voters, 53%, say they are extremely or very concerned that Collins is too close to Trump. Only 47% are similarly concerned that Ossoff is too liberal. In a state Trump carried two years ago, voters are more worried about a candidate being Trumpy than being a Democrat. Read that sentence again.
Collins' best demographics are White evangelical Christians at 79%, White men without a college degree at 65%, and rural voters at 55%. Those are real votes. They are also, in Georgia's current demographic reality, not enough votes on their own to win a statewide race.
Inflation Is the Issue and Ossoff Is Still Winning It
Republican strategists have spent three years betting that economic anxiety would drag Democratic incumbents down in 2026. Forty percent of Georgia voters in this poll say inflation will be the most important issue in their Senate vote. That is the dominant issue by a mile, with healthcare at 13% a distant second.
Ossoff leads among inflation-concerned voters by 21 points. Twenty-one points. On the issue Republicans built their entire midterm strategy around, the Democrat is winning by 21 points. Collins leads voters focused on immigration by 45 points, which is a large margin in a category that only 11% of voters identified as their top concern.
The Fox News poll's Republican co-conductor Daron Shaw put it diplomatically, saying Collins "has work to do convincing Republicans and independents that he and the president can make things more affordable for rank-and-file Georgians." That is a very polite way of saying the current pitch is not working.
The Governor's Race Is Actually Competitive
The Georgia governor's race looks like a different election entirely. Democrat Keisha Lance Bottoms leads Republican Rick Jackson by 5 points, 52% to 47%, which is within the poll's margin of error. That race is a genuine toss-up in a way the Senate race currently is not.
Eleven percent of Ossoff supporters are crossing party lines to back Jackson for governor, while only 5% of Collins supporters are defecting to Lance Bottoms. There is real ticket-splitting happening in Georgia, which tells you something important: voters are not simply picking a party and pulling the lever. They are making individual judgments about individual candidates.
The implication of that is uncomfortable for Collins. Georgians are capable of voting Republican statewide in 2026. They appear to be choosing not to when the Republican in question is him.
The Dingo Take
Let's be honest about what this poll is and what it isn't. One poll taken in late June 2026 is not a final verdict on anything. Shaw himself called the race likely to get more competitive. The Republican money will come in, the attack ads will run, and Ossoff's lead will probably tighten. The Fox News poll from this point in the 2022 Georgia Senate race showed Raphael Warnock ahead too, and that ended up being a runoff decided by less than three points. Georgia does not give anything away for free.
But here is what this poll actually tells us that matters: the Trump endorsement did not give Collins a lane into the general election, it gave him a millstone. The Republican who beat the Kemp-backed candidate in the primary by leaning hard into MAGA is now the Republican who cannot convince a quarter of his own non-MAGA voters to stay home on Election Day. Collins won the battle for the base and appears to be losing everyone else.
The real story in Georgia right now is that Republicans had a chance to nominate someone who might have actually threatened Ossoff, and instead they let Donald Trump pick their candidate for them. Kemp, who actually knows how to win Georgia statewide, backed someone else. The party ignored him. Now they have a candidate who is down 13 in a Fox News poll, hemorrhaging independents, and losing the inflation argument in an inflation election. Congratulations to everyone involved.
