Election-eve shock ties GOP Senate hopeful to demands to end democracy

Georgia Republican Senate nominee Mike Collins faces new questions about his associations on the eve of the election.

A Washington Post analysis tied a former member of Collins' congressional staff to an anonymous social media account that called for an end to American democracy, insulted female politicians and cheered political violence.

According to the Post, details shared on the X account 0UrsaMajor0 match the life of 25-year-old Jonathon Hatzistefanou. He is a legislative assistant to Rep. Daniel Webster (R-FL) and worked as a staff assistant in Collins’ office from May 2023 to March 2024.

The account posted the same birthday, age, education history and family details as Hatzistefanou, and it also promoted an obscure pipeline-safety bill that Webster happened to co-sponsor.

In a brief phone call with the Post, Hatzistefanou denied the account was his and declined to comment further. Within an hour of that call, several posts containing slurs and other extreme language were removed from the profile. At that point he was the only person the Post had contacted about the account.

The report arrives on the eve of Election Day in a race Collins already trails. Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) has repeatedly attacked Collins over staffers and associates linked to white nationalist content, and in a recent debate accused him of hiring “half the Third Reich.”

The list of his questionable employment decisions is long:

• In May, Slate reported that Collins’ then-chief of staff took part in a group chat with white nationalists.
• In August, the Post reported that a different former Collins staffer had posted Nazi and KKK imagery.
• CNN reported that Collins’ son-in-law shared Nazi imagery online.

Collins has said he cut ties with those involved. “I’ve fired people when things happen,” he said in an Oct. 13 debate.

But the latest social media entries uncovered by the Post are extreme:

• The account called Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) an “old hag.”
• It called Islam a “desert slave religion” in a post made while Hatzistefanou worked for Collins.
• It called the civil rights movement a mistake.
• It wrote that the future “is dependent on Congress becoming a museum.”
• It called for “Nuremberg tribunals” for officials who supported transgender youth.
• In a now-deleted post, it said it would pay to watch a researcher of far-right movements “be fed his teeth.”

The account also praised Collins himself. In December 2023, while Hatzistefanou was on Collins’ staff, it applauded the congressman for using an anti-transgender slur. “We are so back,” the account wrote.

Collins’ office and campaign did not answer the Post’s repeated requests for comment. Those requests included a question about why Hatzistefanou left the office after only 10 months. Webster’s office said it was unaware of the account and would be “handling this matter internally.”