AMNA NAWAZ: So we just heard some of the president speaking in Montana this week.

We know he's been out on the road.

Where is he heading next?

LIZ LANDERS: Yes, Amna, he is traveling to Dalton, Georgia, tomorrow to stump for the Senate candidate there, Mike Collins.

I was in Georgia recently for a closer look at that race, where Collins is in an uphill battle against the incumbent Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.

On his vineyard in Southern Georgia, Gary Paulk feels the impacts of many of President Trump's policies firsthand.

GARY PAULK, Paulk Vineyards: The fuel today is twice as high as it would have been this time last year.

LIZ LANDERS: Polk is a fifth-generation muscadine grape farmer in rural Ray, Georgia.

GARY PAULK: Pick them up and eat them, yes.

LIZ LANDERS: Mmm.

GARY PAULK: Sweet.

LIZ LANDERS: Really sweet.

He says fuel prices, tariffs that have raised his costs, and an immigration crackdown that has made it harder to find workers have all taken a toll.

The president says all the time that he is doing these mass deportations because noncitizens, people who are here illegally in some cases are taking jobs from Americans.

Is that the case?

GARY PAULK: That's just -- that's not true.

They're not taking -- they're not taking jobs from Americans, and, actually, a lot of times that they are filling jobs that Americans don't want, more ag jobs and more remedial -- you know, labor-intensive jobs, construction jobs.

LIZ LANDERS: Paulk also worries about access to health care in rural areas after his 36-year-old daughter, Amy, suffered serious strokes that nearly took her life.

GARY PAULK: Amy has come a long way.

She still can't speak very well.

She's just now starting to eat some soft foods, but she's a fighter.

LIZ LANDERS: After weighing all these factors, Paulk has decided for the first time in his life to cast a ballot for a Democrat, incumbent Senator Jon Ossoff.

He doesn't agree with the Democrat on all issues, notably abortion, but it is Ossoff's help in getting federal aid after Hurricane Helene wreaked havoc on Paulk's grape crop that won his vote.

GARY PAULK: He's done a lot of things and proposed a lot of things.

And he's crossed party lines to do it, especially with the hurricane disaster.

They got $531 million appropriated for the hurricane disaster for farmers in this area.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF (D-GA): The country needs us to work.

LIZ LANDERS: At 39, Ossoff is the youngest sitting U.S.

senator and the only Democrat running for reelection in a state Trump won in 2024.

A hotly contested swing state in recent elections, Georgia was expected to be a tight contest again.

But Ossoff has built a comfortable lead, in part by relentlessly focusing on affordability.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: Millions are just one medical bill, short paycheck, or bad alternator from disaster.

You work harder and harder, but the treadmill gets faster and steeper and the bills get higher and higher.

LIZ LANDERS: Ossoff's opponent is Congressman Mike Collins, whose campaign has been plagued with troubles from the beginning, from a campaign kickoff ad that misspelled Georgia to lackluster fund-raising and a series of scandalous headlines that two former aides and even Collins' son-in-law have promoted antisemitism and white nationalist views.

SEN.

JON OSSOFF: If John Lewis were marching today from Selma to Montgomery, Mike Collins would be grabbing a billy club.

His office has been in cahoots with some of the most notorious white supremacists around the country.

LIZ LANDERS: Collins strongly denies the allegations.

REP.

MIKE COLLINS (R-GA), Senatorial Candidate: I have 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.

LIZ LANDERS: A lifelong Georgian whose father was a congressman for 12 years, Collins attacks Ossoff as left-leaning and out of touch with Georgia values.

REP.

MIKE COLLINS: I am unapologetically pro-God, pro-Trump, pro-Second Amendment.

I believe in a strong military.

Peace through strength works.

If it's not good for Georgia and it's not good for this country, I will never support it.

LIZ LANDERS: Collins has made crime and illegal immigration his major campaign issues, touting his bill, the Laken Riley Act, that requires federal authorities to detain undocumented immigrants who commit theft or violent crimes.

REP.

MIKE COLLINS: Every life taken by an illegal immigrant is preventable.

But it can only be stopped when we have leaders that will prioritize American lives.

LIZ LANDERS: Collins supporters like his message.

WOMAN: Absolutely, I'm supporting Mike Collins.

MAN: He gets results, and that's what I want from any candidate that I vote for.

LIZ LANDERS: They also worry the national conversation is hurting him.

MAN: There is the worry with what's going on nationally and internationally with the president that I think is really hurting Mike Collins.

And so I don't know if it's necessarily his fault.

LIZ LANDERS: President Trump has endorsed Collins.

For his part, Ossoff has kept President Trump front and center in his attacks, making viral headlines with this aside: SEN.

JON OSSOFF: So, he doesn't want to do the job.

He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.

(CHEERING) LIZ LANDERS: That brief mention of Trump aide Natalie Harp ricocheted around the Internet for days and prompted this response: QUESTION: What is your response?

DONALD TRUMP: Who said that?

QUESTION: Jon Ossoff.

DONALD TRUMP: You mean Pee-wee Herman?

Pee-wee Herman look-alike.

LIZ LANDERS: Ossoff's campaign style has made him a social media star and even sparked talk of a future presidential run.

But it's Ossoff's attention to local issues, helping constituents solve problems, and steering federal money to Georgia, that has won over even some Republican elected officials.

Scott James Matheson is the mayor of Valdosta, Georgia, in one of the reddest parts of the state.

President Trump has visited Valdosta, Georgia, three times in the last decade.

He won this county that we're in here by 18 points in the 2024 presidential race.

This is Trump country.

SCOTT JAMES MATHESON, Mayor of Valdosta, Georgia: I'm very conservative by nature.

I stick strictly to Republican beliefs, core beliefs.

LIZ LANDERS: Why are you going to vote for Senator Ossoff?

SCOTT JAMES MATHESON: It's a relationship.

I don't know how it took root, but, boy, it's been beneficial to myself as a mayor and to the city of Valdosta.

LIZ LANDERS: Their relationship started in 2022, when Ossoff helped win federal money for a transit system in Valdosta.

And two years ago, when Hurricane Helene devastated the city, Ossoff was the first national politician to visit the scene.

Congressman Mike Collins represents a district not that far from here.

Why not endorse him?

SCOTT JAMES MATHESON: I don't know him.

I didn't have that relationship.

You develop a friendship.

I think people expected me to turn my back on him.

I think people thought that I'd turn away from Jon Ossoff, and I'm just not built that way.

There's no way I'm going to turn my back on that, politics aside.

LIZ LANDERS: He says affordability is the issue he hears most from residents these days.

SCOTT JAMES MATHESON: It's everything that I hear.

It's a very expensive walk through life right now.

I never thought that a power bill at my house would be more than my first two mortgages.

It's just a different world.

That's exactly what I hear.

LIZ LANDERS: About an hour away back at the vineyard, Gary Paulk says he plans to support Republican Rick Jackson for governor, but he's sticking with Ossoff for the Senate.

GARY PAULK: I have church members that probably will chastise me for the... LIZ LANDERS: For the sign?

GARY PAULK: For the sign, but I got some thick skin, you know?

I just say, I want to be on the winning inside.

LIZ LANDERS: For the "PBS News Hour," I'm Liz Landers.