Ossoff builds lead in Georgia Senate race as national Democrats take notice

Viral speeches and constituent services reshape Georgia Senate contest

At 39, Ossoff has spent his entire Senate career in the political era Trump has dominated. He is the first senator elected from the millennial generation and the only Jewish senator Georgia has sent to Washington, according to NPR.

The race opened the cycle as a marquee opportunity for Republicans — a Democratic incumbent in a state Trump carried, identified early by the party as a top target. The contest has not, however, developed into the nail-biter that most handicappers anticipated.

A series of self-written speeches, filmed at rallies and clipped for social media, has spread Ossoff’s rhetoric well beyond Georgia. At an Atlanta rally earlier this month, Ossoff told supporters that “our task is not just to contain his wickedness but to cure the rot that gave rise to it,” adding, “This broken moment is an opening not for restoration, but for reformation.” Rebecca Bruno, who met a fellow rallygoer while knocking doors for Ossoff’s 2020 campaign, told NPR that the senator “just knows how to boil it down.”

One brief passage about Trump aide Natalie Harp ricocheted online for days. “He doesn’t want to do the job,” Ossoff said. “He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar.” Trump responded by calling Ossoff “Pee-wee Herman,” according to NPR.

Chris Hayes, host of MS NOW and author of “The Siren’s Call: How Attention Became the World’s Most Endangered Resource,” told NPR that Ossoff’s viral success reflects a generational adjustment to attention-economy politics. “Be provocative and say crazy stuff, that doesn’t really work for him,” Hayes said. “But he figured out how to produce this kind of viral attention, while also being controlled.” The viral videos have translated into massive fundraising, NPR reported, though the network did not specify dollar totals.

Ossoff’s lead in polling coincides with bipartisan recognition of his office’s constituent-services work. In Jesup, a rural southeast Georgia town, 81-year-old Nancy Lancy described struggling with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and the Internal Revenue Service after her husband’s death from dementia. She told NPR that a staff member from Ossoff’s office took on her case, kept her updated, and resolved the issues. “It was amazing,” Lancy said. “This was a new experience, to have someone caring about me.”

Brunswick Mayor Pro Tem Lance Sabbe, who said he had previously voted for both parties, told NPR he did not hesitate to endorse Ossoff. “He doesn’t flip open his notes,” Sabbe said. “It’s like he honestly cares and knows.” The Republican mayors of Valdosta and Tifton in South Georgia have also endorsed the senator, NPR reported.

Ossoff’s Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Collins, has tried to tie the senator to the progressive wing of his party and questioned his experience. At a July rally in Augusta, Collins called Ossoff “a trust fund kid” who has “never had a real job in his life,” according to NPR.

Some of Ossoff’s strength with independent voters also reflects discomfort with Collins, NPR reported. The network noted that Collins has falsely insisted Trump won the 2020 election in Georgia and has refused to disavow his son-in-law’s social media posts containing white nationalist content and antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Ossoff’s Israel-related votes have introduced more friction within his coalition. According to NPR, Ossoff has on several occasions voted to block sales of certain bombs, rifles, and bulldozers to the Israeli military, citing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s conduct of the war in Gaza, and at other times has voted against similar measures. Andrew Lewis, who described himself as an independent voter active in several Atlanta Jewish institutions, told NPR he expects to agree with Ossoff on most but not every vote. Valerie Habif, who co-founded the Jewish Democratic Women’s Salon in Atlanta, told NPR that while some members had been hurt by the votes, most Jewish Democrats were not single-issue voters and were standing by the senator.

Outside his partisan clashes, Ossoff has drawn bipartisan notice for committee investigations on topics that include abuse in the foster care system, prison conditions, and maternal mortality. In one exchange that circulated widely online, Ossoff pressed Trump’s nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, on who won the 2020 election.

Ossoff’s vote for the Laken Riley Act, which makes it easier for federal immigration officials to detain and deport people without legal status who are charged with crimes, has drawn less attention in Georgia than outside it, NPR reported. The legislation is named after a Georgia nursing student killed by a Venezuelan man in the U.S. without legal status. “Democratic primary voters outside Georgia may be less forgiving of that vote than Georgia Democrats, who understand the battleground dynamics Ossoff is managing in the state,” NPR wrote.

Presidential speculation has followed Ossoff throughout the campaign. Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga., told NPR he called Ossoff to ask about it after hearing a cable news segment raise the possibility. “I think he’s more concerned about the effect that his being away from home for prolonged periods of time has on his family,” Johnson said. Ossoff, who has two daughters under five, has repeatedly ruled out a 2028 run.

NPR noted that some Democrats see Sen. Raphael Warnock, who flipped the other Georgia seat alongside Ossoff in 2020, as a more likely presidential candidate; Warnock has a new book out and has been touring outside the state. Before his 2020 Senate win, Ossoff nearly flipped a suburban Atlanta House seat in 2017 in an early test of the Trump resistance, and before that he ran a documentary film company focused on corruption — a theme that has carried into his campaign speeches. He came up in politics as a staffer for the late Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon Ossoff considered a mentor, after an introduction from Lewis himself. Aaron Whitley, the Chatham County Democratic Party chair, told NPR that Ossoff “doesn’t fit into a box” because he has managed to appeal to Democrats of varying views.