Trump-backed Senate candidate is linked to white nationalist influencer – his son-in-law

The Republican Senate nominee in Georgia, Mike Collins, who has been plagued by a string of controversies in his time in public office, has close ties with a white nationalist influencer – his son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II – it has transpired.A trucking executive and one-time “Freedom caucus” conservative endorsed by Donald Trump, Collins has been the GOP representative for Georgia’s 10th congressional district since 2023. In that time, the anti-abortion hardliner has drawn scrutiny over his associations with far-right and extremist figures, incendiary social media activity and accusations of antisemitism, which he has denied. He has also denied the legitimacy of the 2020 election and defended January 6 rioters, who he has said deserved pardons.Collins won the Republican nomination in June, but enters the race as an underdog in a state that Trump won in 2024, against rising Democratic star Jon Ossoff in November’s midterm elections.Scheer, who is married to Collins’s daughter Summer, is a white nationalist and social media influencer with a history of sharing antisemitic material and sentiment and Nazi imagery on the internet. Among them are posts from the neofascist, white supremacist hate group Patriot Front, which descended on Washington DC this Fourth of July wearing white masks and brandishing the Confederate flag.According to CNN, Scheer is registered to vote at a Collins-owned property in Georgia, has been featured in Collins’s campaign photos and was at Collins’s victory party after the candidate won the Republican primary in June.On social media, Scheer has over 1.5 million followers across the TikTok, Instagram, YouTube and Telegram platforms, where he posts about fitness, Christianity and masculinity. He has promoted white nationalist ideology, shared antisemitic conspiracy theories, called for Muslims to be deported and shared an antisemitic infographic, which he said his wife made.On a podcast in last November, Scheer warned that white people were being driven toward extinction and said restoring an America populated by people of white European descent would require “clearing our land of other people”. He later pushed for keeping Somalis, Mexicans and Nigerians in their home countries so he could “enjoy my slice of this world with my people”. Scheer also blamed “Israel and Zionist Jews” for policies he said were intended to “undermine the white, Christian nature of America”. He also said: “I do believe that the more homogenous a culture is, the more it thrives.”He recently asked his followers to vote on a poll whether he should make a video on “why Gen-Z doesn’t hate Hitler”. He later deleted it, but CNN saved it. He has also invoked the antisemitic “Jewish Bolsheviks” conspiracy theory, which falsely portrayed communism and the Bolshevik revolution as a Jewish plot. It was embraced by the Nazis, who scapegoated Jews as to blame for Germany’s socioeconomic collapse after the first world war.Within a YouTube comment section from a video posted in November 2025, Scheer liked a comment in German quoting a 1930s marching song co-opted by the Nazis called Erika. In English, its lyrics translate to: “On the heath, there blooms a little flower.”In an Instagram post from June 2025, Scheer posted a meme of a family cradling a baby with an eagle in the background, with a text overlay reading: “I want to make babies not die for Israel.” The caption reads: “If you haven’t noticed, we all have a common enemy.” The image used comes from a 1930s Nazi propaganda and recruitment poster, which features a quote that translates to: “The Nazi party protects the people’s community.”Scheer has also claimed that Jews are responsible for porn, the assassinations of JFK and conservative activist Charlie Kirk, and the 9/11 terror attacks, and has repeated the conspiracy theory that Jeffrey Epstein was a Mossad agent and blackmailed politicians into supporting an “Israel first” agenda.skip past newsletter promotionafter newsletter promotionIn a post last year on Telegram, Scheer shared an infographic claiming Jews control the US government through financial influence, attributing the graphic to his wife. The infographic claimed that Jewish donors, advocacy groups, and institutions had captured US politics and were directing US foreign policy on behalf of Israel.On Telegram in June 2025, Scheer also posted a series of antisemitic infographics blaming Jews for being responsible for “every single aspect” of gun control, abortion, the LBGTQ movement, and “pornography and hook up culture”. Two of the infographics claimed that Jews controlled the media and the Federal Reserve. They show pictures of prominent Jewish politicians, activists, economists, and business owners with the Star of David on their foreheads or by their names.The Guardian reached out to Collins’s campaign for comment. In a statement to CNN, it did not address questions regarding Scheer and his social media activity. A spokesperson for Collins said: “Rep Collins’ lifelong support for Israel is unquestionable and backed by his consistent record in Congress of standing up for Israel and her people.”The Guardian has reached out to Scheer for comment.