US midterms: key takeaways from Senate debates in Michigan, Georgia and Maine

Candidates traded personal attacks and clashed over a range of issues in closely watched US Senate debates on Thursday, with control of Congress at stake

With just weeks left in the contentious midterm election campaign, candidates in a trio of highly-competitive Senate races debated Thursday night, clashing over the economy, tariffs, the Iran war and abortion rights, with control of the upper chamber at stake.

In Georgia, incumbent Democratic senator Jon Ossoff faced GOP representative Mike Collins. In Michigan, Democrat Abdul Al-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers debated over the state’s open Senate seat. And in Maine, longtime senator Susan Collins met Democratic challenger Troy Jackson. Democrats need to flip four Republican-held Senate seats to win the majority.

In Georgia, Ossoff repeatedly asked Collins to justify his support for Trump’s global tariff policies, which the senator said have “crushed Georgia families” and “strangled” economic growth.

“Let’s see if he has the courage to explain his votes,” Ossoff said, adding later: “Still have not heard an explanation for the tariffs.”

Collins, who is trying to cut into Ossoff’s lead, blamed inflation on Biden administration policies, singling out spending measures that his opponent had supported.

Later in Maine, where polls show a tight race, Jackson focused his remarks on pocketbook issues, including the sharp spike in heating oil costs and high energy prices.

Collins defended her record and argued that Maine had benefited from the $50bn rural health transformation fund that was appended to Trump’s signature tax cut and spending bill, the so-called Big Beautiful bill.

In the Georgia debate, a question about data centers erupted into a pointed, personal exchange between Ossoff and Collins.

“Mike Collins voted to take that money out of your pocket and out of your community and give it instead to data center developers,” Ossoff said.

He then accused Collins of being a “bigot” who has “hired half the Third Reich” – a reference to the congressman’s history of employing staffers who have expressed white nationalist, antisemitic, and extremist views online.

“If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery,” Ossoff said of the late civil rights icon and long-serving Georgia congressman, “Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club. His office has been in cahoots with some of the most notorious white supremacists on the country.”

Collins was asked directly about his son-in-law’s social media posts promoting white nationalist and antisemitic views.

“You know, Rick, that’s my family,” Collins replied. “That’s the craziness that Jon Ossoff has been spewing out there.” Collins noted that a New York man had recently been charged after threatening to kill him, and added: “I’ve condemned racism, antisemitism, hate; I don’t care where the source is. And I tell him that too, it’s wrong. We have no place in this world for that.”