Whether it’s the race between Jim Kington and Amanda Hollowell to succeed Buddy Carter as Coastal Georgia’s congressman or the contest for Georgia’s U.S. Senate seat, the amount of campaign spending is eye-watering and the disparity between candidates gaping.
As of Sept. 30, Kingston, a Republican, reported $399,559 in cash on hand, according to candidate filings submitted to the Federal Election Commission last week, the last major finance deadline ahead of Election Day. Hollowell, his Democratic opponent, had $56,762.
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Kingston, son of former congressman Jack Kingston and an ex-insurance salesman, reported $2.3 million in contributions in his first run for elected office, some $394,950 of it from non-party candidate and political action committees (PACs).
These contributions included at least $35,000 from insurance-industry PACs; $5,000 each from PACs operated by Home Depot and Koch Industries; $2,500 from the employees PAC of Southern Company, Georgia Power’s parent company; and at least $64,000 from candidate committees of current or former Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives and PACs connected to them.
The Kingston campaign lists 1,181 donations, topped by contributions of $14,000 each from nine individuals, and two donations totaling $28,000 from Dale Critz, Jr., president and CEO of the Critz Auto Group.
Hollowell has received $6,500 in contributions from PACs and non-party candidate committees, including $1,000 from PAC for Georgia’s Youth. Her campaign committee lists 217 individual donations. No contribution exceeds $1,000.
Collins v. Ossoff
In the race for the U.S. Senate, the principal campaign committee for Republican Mike Collins, reported $1.14 million in cash on hand as of Sept. 30, while the incumbent, Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, reported $26.27 million.
Overall, Collins has taken in $9.29 million in campaign donations since Jan. 1, 2025, and Ossoff, $110.43 million.
Of those amounts, the most for Collins came from donors in Georgia ($2.41 million), followed by Florida ($229.620). For Ossoff, the most came from donors in California ($7.35 million) followed by those in the Peach State ($6.86 million).
None of these numbers include spending by outside groups in this election cycle.
Total outside spending — money spent independently of campaigns to support or opposed candidates — in federal races now tops $2.4 billion, according to an analysis by the group Open Secrets of FEC data for 928 federal candidates through Oct. 13.
While Democratic candidates are outraising Republican candidates nationwide, Republican super PACS are offsetting that advantage with record outside money.
Elon Musk has emerged as the cycle’s biggest known individual donor, pouring more than $276 million into federal groups, including a major effort to help Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate race.
