MARIETTA, Ga. — There’s the Jon Ossoff who constructed his political profession round criticizing Donald Trump.
There’s additionally the Ossoff who works with Republicans, advancing the pursuits of Georgia’s farmers and army bases.
However they’re the identical man — a 38-year-old first-term U.S. senator from Georgia who says his race would be the “important occasion” in 2026. He is the one Democratic senator looking for reelection from a state Trump carried in successful final 12 months’s presidential election.
Ossoff is amongst many Democrats in search of the best solution to problem Trump and Republicans after the GOP received the White Home and congressional majorities in 2024. Whereas some Democrats could also be eyeing the presidency in 2028, Ossoff has a extra speedy purpose — retaining his seat in Georgia, the place Republicans hope to pad their slender Senate majority.
Nonetheless, midterm elections sometimes favor the get together opposing the president. And Republicans in recent times have typically nominated candidates seen by moderates as as too extreme, together with in Georgia.
Ossoff, in the meantime, picks his spots rigorously, challenging Trump vigorously on some fronts whereas nonetheless professing a willingness to work with him. In current weeks, he launched his reelection bid with a blistering critique of Trump’s second time period, weathered criticism from Democrats that he wasn’t preventing laborious sufficient, and touted patriotism and repair to potential army academy college students at Dobbins Air Reserve Base in Marietta.
Ossoff says there’s no conflict between bipartisanship and preventing Trump, however on this still-early stage of the second Trump administration, he is clearly trying to strike the best stability. Georgia voters returned to Trump in 2024 after narrowly choosing Democrat Joe Biden in 2020 and giving Democrats management of the Senate by electing Ossoff and Raphael Warnock in twin runoffs.
“My first and highest obligation is to ship for the state of Georgia,” Ossoff stated in an interview with The Related Press, vowing to pursue “alternatives to work with this administration or to proceed to accomplice with Republicans in Congress.”
However Ossoff is not new to criticizing Trump. He grew to become a resistance hero in his unsuccessful 2017 run within the first particular election of Trump’s first time period, setting a then-record for spending on a Home seat.
“We now have by no means seen a president attempt to wield the federal authorities to crush his critics and political adversaries. That’s one thing new in American historical past, and it’s, in my opinion, un-American,” Ossoff stated. “And it’s one thing that ought to chill us to the bone, regardless of our politics, regardless of our coverage preferences.”
At a current city corridor, some voters pressed Ossoff to extra straight confront Trump.
“Do you suppose that there’s nothing going to be performed?” requested Kate Denny, of Avondale Estates. ”No. Do one thing extra.”
Whereas Ossoff instructed Denny that “there isn’t any doubt that this president’s conduct has already exceeded any prior commonplace for impeachment,” he additionally stated he has “no magic button” to cease Trump. The one dependable answer, he stated, is reclaiming the Home and the Senate.
Ossoff stated he will not change his strategy.
“I’m who I’m, and I converse straight, I converse candidly,” Ossoff stated. “I additionally suppose earlier than I converse.”
Democrats had hoped 2021 victories by Ossoff and Warnock signaled the get together’s resurgence in Georgia. However Republican Gov. Brian Kemp cruised to reelection in 2022 over Democrat Stacey Abrams. Warnock wanted a runoff to dispatch the flawed Senate campaign of former soccer star Herschel Walker.
In 2024, Georgia voters favored Trump over then-Vice President Kamala Harris by 2 proportion factors. Many Republicans wager Ossoff’s election in 2020 was a fluke and purpose to maintain him from operating to the middle as Warnock did in 2022.
“Ossoff’s far-left politics solely labored in particular second of GOP chaos,” Republican political advisor Dan McLagan stated. “Now it is like he is exhibiting up at a Lee Greenwood Fourth of July live performance with a ‘Free Palestine’ signal and a Che Guevara T-shirt. Everybody has already seen him, and it is too late to alter his garments.”
Even inside his personal get together, Ossoff’s course hasn’t at all times been clean. Some Black Democrats took offense at his effort to oust U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams of Atlanta as chair of the Democratic Social gathering of Georgia. The get together modified its guidelines to make the place paid and full time, with Williams stepping down earlier than Democrats elected a new chair Saturday. Ossoff stated he requested Williams to give up, saying that to progress “Georgia Democrats want a statewide get together group with nationally unparalleled professionalism, assets and capabilities.”
The primary Jewish senator from Georgia, Ossoff additionally upset many Jewish voters when he supported a November decision by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, an unbiased who caucuses with Democrats, to dam the sale of some weapons to Israel.
The vote earned Ossoff a public letter of rebuke from many Jewish establishments, together with The Temple, the historic Atlanta synagogue the place he had his bar mitzvah. A second letter, first reported by The New York Occasions, was despatched privately by prime Jewish donors to Kemp urging him to hunt Ossoff’s seat.
In April, Ossoff voted in opposition to a brand new set of Sanders resolutions, and tensions have eased, stated Alli Medof, a Democrat lengthy energetic for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel group. “The temperature is lowered, however the belief degree is just not but restored,” she stated.
Ossoff touts his success in getting India to decrease tariffs on Georgia-grown pecans and has cultivated voters in Republican areas past Atlanta. He enthusiastically backed Biden’s incentives to construct electrical autos and has competed with Kemp to take credit score for investments.
Ossoff walks a finer line on immigration. He voted for the Laken Riley Act, which requires detention of immigrants who’re within the U.S. illiegally and are accused of theft and violent crimes. The legislation is called after a slain Georgia nursing student whose case Republicans publicized. Ossoff stated that People “deserve safe borders” and that “the Biden administration failed in its border insurance policies,” however he additionally says immigration coverage have to be “humane.”
Republicans have already launched advertisements attacking Ossoff’s opposition to a bill barring colleges from permitting transgender ladies to take part in ladies’s sports activities. Ossoff calls that an obsession most voters do not share.
One in every of Ossoff’s trademark strikes is to announce investigations — a callback to his job producing documentaries analyzing corruption earlier than he ran for the Senate.
“I believe that in some methods, Congress has uncared for now for many years the vigorous use of our oversight authorities,” Ossoff stated on the city corridor.
One investigation led to the Federal Prison Oversight Act, which mandated jail inspections and created an ombudsman to analyze complaints. However not all reform strikes have succeeded. After asserting a bipartisan settlement in July to ban congressional stock trading — a serious theme of Ossoff’s successful marketing campaign in opposition to Republican Sen. David Perdue — the deal went nowhere.
One query is who Ossoff’s Republican opponent shall be. Kemp, possible the strongest GOP candidate, could decline to run. If he opts out, U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene is one attainable Republican candidate.
Greene may very well be Ossoff’s dream opponent, and he has appeared to ask her entry — betting the north Georgia firebrand would repel swing voters who could not abdomen Walker.
Both method, the race will not be low cost. Ossoff raised $11.2 million in 2025’s first quarter and is already spending closely.
Ossoff declines to debate attainable opponents however says he is prepared.
“I welcome any challenger,” he stated, “and I’m greater than ready for any challenger.”
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Observe the AP’s protection of Sen. Jon Ossoff at https://apnews.com/hub/jon-ossoff.
