Opinion: For Ossoff, 2026 bid doubles as a return to political origins
In fight for a second term, Ossoff hopes to reignite the energy that powered his previous campaigns
With Donald Trump’s second administration now in its third month, Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff held a rally on Saturday to fire up disillusioned Democrats as he prepares for a tough re-election battle.
His campaign was reluctant to label the event as a campaign kickoff, instead calling it a “Rally for our Republic.” But the incumbent gave us an early look at the main tactic he plans to showcase on the campaign trail: full-throated resistance to the Republican administration and its cost-cutting, job-slashing moves.
Ossoff was introduced by fellow Georgia Sen. Raphael Warnock, who joked that he was “traumatized” when he walked onstage because he thought it was “time for me to run again.” The two Senators hope that joint rallies like this — which are certain to become more common as Ossoff’s campaign ramps up — will remind voters of the history that was made in 2020 and 2021 when their upset victories over wealthy Republican incumbents helped seal full Democratic control of Capitol Hill.
“Five years ago, we faced a different sort of crisis — the deadliest pandemic since 1918. Thousands died per day, tens of millions were out of work. Lines for food banks ran for miles,” Ossoff remarked.
“And Donald Trump was president then, too.”
It’s not lost on Ossoff — nor the thousands who gathered in an East Atlanta venue Saturday to hear him speak — that his re-election bid has many loud echoes of his previous political campaigns. The then-30-year-old filmmaker first ran for Congress in a special election eight years ago because, in his words, he saw the election of “someone so unfit for the presidency as a danger to the country.”
In 2020, as the COVID-19 pandemic worsened and the outgoing President was publicly casting doubt on the legitimacy of his defeat, Ossoff and Warnock emerged as the last men standing in the battle for control of the Senate. “It was the Jewish kid and the Black pastor running together with you alongside us,” the Senator said. “And now it is our deepest honor to represent you in the Senate.”
Since his election, Ossoff has scaled back his social media presence and rarely appears on cable news or Sunday talk shows. But Saturday’s rally featured some of his sharpest attacks yet on the early actions of President Trump and his top advisor, Elon Musk, who has played a key role in overhauling the civilian workforce. In just two months, the administration has made headlines for cutting jobs at the Georgia-based CDC, attacking federal judges and prosecutors, and pardoning Capitol rioters.
“This administration is trying to poison our democracy with fear and intimidation,” Ossoff warned the crowd. “[President Trump’s] goal is not just revenge. He wants to use the government to crush the opposition.”
The confrontational strategy is a drastic shift from the “wait-and-see” approach that Ossoff himself was taking in the days and weeks after Trump’s re-election.
It’s also a strategy that other swing state Democrats are publicly backing away from: Sen. Elissa Slotkin, a Democrat who narrowly won an open Senate seat in Michigan last November as Trump ran the table in the battleground states, declared this month that she “can’t just be an activist” because “we live in a purple state.”
And Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA), who joined a few of his Democratic Senate colleagues in supporting the Republican-crafted spending plan, said that a prolonged shutdown fight would have plunged the nation into chaos all while harming millions. “We kept our government open,” he said bluntly on social media. “Deal with it.”
Ossoff’s approach is likely to bring some comfort to a party widely regarded as leaderless. Democrats are facing some of their lowest approval numbers ever as voters continue in search of a leader they can follow and a singular message they can unite behind while the President moves at breakneck speed to remake the federal government, domestic policy and world order in his image.
But it could also be a double-edged sword for the first-term lawmaker. As the only Senate Democrat on the ballot next year in a state that was won by Trump, his chances of holding onto his job hinge almost entirely on the swing voters who helped the President punch his return ticket to the White House.
No Republican has formally entered the Senate race yet — the field has remained frozen as popular Gov. Brian Kemp weighs a possible bid — but that isn’t stopping the national party from going on the attack in a race widely expected to come down to the wire.
"Jon Ossoff cares more about hating Donald Trump than delivering for the people of Georgia," said Nick Puglia, a Senate GOP campaign spokesperson. "It's pathetic and in 2026, Georgians will dump Ossoff for a leader who will truly fight for them."
But Jason Esteves, an Atlanta-area state lawmaker who attended Saturday’s rally, believes voters are looking for leaders who will “keep their families safe and give their children more opportunities than they had [to succeed].” He suggests that voters will soon realize that Trump and Musk don’t care about their everyday needs.
“Politicians like Donald Trump and Brian Kemp have failed hardworking families,” said Esteves, himself a likely statewide candidate next year. “Georgians are looking for leaders who will actually address the high cost of living, protect affordable healthcare and housing, strengthen our education system, and help Georgians grow their own businesses.”
