Senate hopeful Mike Collins faces scrutiny over staff links to extremist group

Two prominent figures in Rep. Mike Collins' Senate campaign, Joshua Mote and Michael Boggus, have past ties to American Patriots USA, a white-nationalist group founded by former Ku Klux Klan leader Chester Doles. Doles, who boasts a fifth-generation KKK lineage and was convicted of assaulting a Black man in 1993, also appeared at the 2017 Unite the Right rally. Boggus served as the group's state director and campaigned alongside Doles in 2020, while Mote held a vice-presidential role before joining Collins as a convoy captain.

Both claim they withdrew from the organization after discovering Doles' extremist past, and Collins has previously condemned the group as a hate organization. The staff connections surface amid other scandals, such as Collins' son-in-law sharing antisemitic content online and an intern posting KKK-related images. These developments have prompted GOP strategists to question continued financial support for Collins' bid against Senator Jon Ossoff.