For the first four years of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s term, the freshman senator has focused on the people and problems that don’t typically lead to big campaign contributions and definitely don’t go viral on social media. Think prison reform, military housing, hurricane relief and updating old sewer systems.
The 38-year-old got off TikTok almost as soon as he was elected and calls all forms of social media “a steady diet of poison.” Instead of cable news hits and hot takes, he is still doing cold calls to constituents from his Washington office, dialing up mayors, farmers, teachers, and other Georgians he may or may not know, to see what’s on their minds.
The calls have become well known and engendered everything from affection from local leaders to grudging respect from GOP operatives, one of whom told me, “Jon Ossoff’s name is more likely to show up on your cellphone than on MSNBC.”
But with President Donald Trump back in the White House and Ossoff up for reelection in 2026, the often cautious Atlanta Democrat is going to have to turn up the volume if he wants to keep his job. Republicans are coming for him and panicked members of his own party are demanding more.
They might get more this weekend, when Ossoff holds an event that his campaign is billing as “a Rally for the Republic.” A person familiar with his planned speech said it’s not a formal campaign kickoff, but a time for Ossoff to speak to the intense anxiety among Democrats and others about Trump’s rapid-fire overhaul of the federal government and the presidency itself.
“He’s planning to denounce Trump’s unprecedented power grab and attack on the rule of law,” the person said, “While also addressing corruption in the political system he believes has given rise to Trump and destroyed confidence in government and politics.”
With mass layoffs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a complete rollback of DEI initiatives and Republicans moving to cut Medicaid, you don’t have to look far in Georgia to find the distress among Democrats that Ossoff is speaking to.
At a town hall meeting in Atlanta this week for the Legislative Black Caucus, members sat under a massive sign that read, “If we don’t fight for us, who will?”
The moderator, Ryan Wilson from the Gathering Spot, started off by asking the elected Democrats, “Do you want to win or do you just want to look good losing?”
A different town hall for U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams included a question from John Harris, a consultant from Midtown, who was angry that Williams had just introduced a resolution honoring Delta Air Lines’ 100th Anniversary. That kind of resolution would usually go unnoticed, had Williams not co-sponsored it with freshman Republican Congressman (and former Trump staffer) Brian Jack, whom Harris called a “MAGA Republican”
Credit: Greg Bluestein/AJC
Credit: Greg Bluestein/AJC
“I don’t think that was the right thing for this moment in history, as our Republic is crumbling around us,” he said, adding later, “It’s not normal times and we should not be acting like it’s normal times.”
Trump’s return to the White House feels like an existential crisis for Democratic voters here, especially since the president won Georgia after losing the state four years earlier. Party leaders cannot seem to agree on why they lost or what they should do next.
But Teri Anulewicz, a former Democratic state representative from Cobb County, said she thinks Trump’s first six weeks in the Oval Office could pave the way for Ossoff to get another six years in the Senate, since cuts to VA staffing, Medicaid benefits and education funding land the same, no matter what party someone’s a part of.
“I think there’s a real opportunity for Ossoff to speak even to Trump voters,” she said. “Despite the fact that Trump was very clear with everything he was going to do, everything he’s done has still sort of come as a surprise. People were like, ‘I didn’t think the leopard would eat my face.’”
Brian Robinson, a longtime GOP strategist, sees Ossoff as vulnerable by any measure. Internal Republican polling in Georgia shows Ossoff running well behind Gov. Brian Kemp and just ahead of a generic Republican, but with under 50% support.
“The chief of staff to a Republican congressman just texted out of the blue saying, ‘I see a Democratic incumbent below 50%, I like my chances,’” Robinson said.
Like every statewide candidate in Georgia, Ossoff will need a combination of strong support from his own party, along with a bucket of crossover voters. They are the same people who voted for both GOP Gov. Brian Kemp and Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in 2022. Robinson calls them “the Deciders.”
And that’s where Ossoff’s years of cold calls, sewer lines and military housing come into play.
“The deciders have got some nutrition from Ossoff, a reason to vote for him, and I think that’s a wise strategy,” Robinson said. “He might also neutralize Republicans who aren’t going to vote for him, but might not speak out against him. And I think it appeals to the deciders.”
Trump’s diehards are lining up to vote against Ossoff, but will the deciders and the Democratic base like what they see as he steps further into the 2026 fray? Neither group has gotten everything they want from him. But Anulewicz, who was defeated in her 2024 primary by a Democratic Socialist, said the base needs to “get comfortable being a tiny bit uncomfortable” if they want to keep the seat.
“He has to have some cross-party appeal. That is the reality of the math,” she said.
The deciders, the activists and everybody else will get their chance to hear from Ossoff, with the volume up, this weekend.
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