Jon Ossoff, usually a head down senator, has found a formula to excite Democrats
ATLANTA — On paper, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia should be among the most vulnerable incumbents this year.
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Ossoff → find → incumbents
He is the only Senate Democrat defending a seat in a state President Trump won in 2024.
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Trump → defend → 2024
But the race has not turned into the nail-biter most anticipated, and Democrats outside Georgia are taking notice – at a time when the party is debating how to escape the political wilderness and win back a majority in Congress.
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party → turn → Congress
"He reminds me of Obama, honestly," says 28-year-old Courtney Rogers, who came of age as the Obama years gave way to Trump.
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years → remind → Trump
In Ossoff, the first millennial senator, Rogers sees traces of an earlier era.
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Rogers → see → era
Rogers was waiting to buy an Ossoff T-shirt at an Atlanta rally this month.
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Rogers → wait → rally
Nearby Rebecca Bruno and Beth Louise arrived already wearing theirs.
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Bruno → arrive → theirs
The two friends met while knocking doors for Ossoff's 2020 Senate campaign, when he and the Rev. Raphael Warnock flipped Georgia's Senate seats blue for the first time in a generation.
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he → meet → generation
Ossoff arrived on the national stage three years earlier as he came close to flipping a suburban Atlanta House seat in an early test of the Trump resistance.
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he → arrive → resistance
Prior to that race, Ossoff had run a documentary film company focused on corruption — now a throughline in campaign speeches alleging graft in Trump's orbit.
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Ossoff → run → orbit
"Our task is not just to contain his wickedness but to cure the rot that gave rise to it," Ossoff told the Atlanta crowd.
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Ossoff → contain → crowd
"He just knows how to boil it down," Bruno says, adding it also does not hurt that he is handsome.
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he → know → it
These speeches, which Ossoff writes himself, have become a sensation among liberal voters, fueling talk of a presidential bid.
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Ossoff → write → bid
Despite running in a purple state, where winning purely Democratic voters is not enough to carry a statewide race, Ossoff does not hold back in his blistering takedowns of Trump.
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Ossoff → run → Trump
"He doesn't want to do the job," Ossoff said.
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Ossoff → want → job
"He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar."
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He → want → Qatar
That brief mention of Trump aide Natalie Harp ricocheted around the internet for days, prompting Trump to respond, calling Ossoff "Pee-wee Herman."
MS NOW host Chris Hayes, author of the The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, says lines like this, filmed from multiple angles and clipped for social media, exemplify how Ossoff has managed to remain substantive and break through a crowded media environment that tends to reward the outrageous.
"Be provocative and say crazy stuff, that doesn't really work for him," Hayes says.
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Hayes → ricochet → him
"But he figured out how to produce this kind of viral attention, while also being controlled."
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he → figure → attention
Hayes says it helps that at 39, Ossoff is one of a few people in American politics whose political career was fully born after the rise of Trump, a master of the attention economy.
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career → say → economy
"That probably makes you better equipped to operate in this environment than those thinking about how it used to be," he says.
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he → make → those
The viral videos have another upside: the attention has helped generate massive fundraising.
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attention → have → fundraising
None of this entirely explains polls suggesting Ossoff's lead in battleground Georgia.
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One reason some prominent Republicans have offered is Ossoff's focus on constituent services.
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Republicans → offer → services
"My goal from the moment I was elected has been to serve the state with excellence," Ossoff told NPR at a campaign stop in coastal Brunswick.
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Ossoff → elect → Brunswick
That includes the rural, mostly Republican southeast Georgia town of Jesup, where 81 year-old Nancy Lancy lives on a few wooded acres along a creek where she feeds the deer every night.
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she → include → deer
When Lancy's husband died after a struggle with dementia, she was exhausted.
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she → die → dementia
Then came battles with the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration and the Internal Revenue Service.
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battles → come → Affairs
"Unbelievable stuff that I hadn't even thought about because I had been thinking from minute to minute," she says.
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she → think → minute
Then Lancy saw a newspaper notice that Ossoff's team would be in town offering help.
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team → see → help
Lancy says a kind staffer got to work on her case, kept her updated and eventually resolved her issues.
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staffer → say → issues
"It was amazing," Lancy says.
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Lancy → say → ?
"This was a new experience, to have someone caring about me.
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This → have → me
This responsiveness is why Brunswick Mayor Pro Tem Lance Sabbe did not hesitate in making his choice for Senate, despite having voted for Democrats and Republicans in the past.
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Sabbe → hesitate → past
He says Ossoff is often the first to call after a natural disaster and is well-versed on local projects.
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Ossoff → say → projects
"He doesn't flip open his notes," Sabbe says.
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Sabbe → flip → notes
"It's like he honestly cares and knows."
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he → care → ?
Ossoff has become known for his direct questioning of Trump administration officials during committee hearings, including a viral exchange pressing Trump's nominee for director of national intelligence, Jay Clayton, on who won the 2020 election.
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who → become → election
But Ossoff has also dedicated much of his Senate investigative focus to bipartisan probes on more staid topics like abuse in the foster care system, prison conditions and maternal mortality.
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Ossoff → dedicate → system
To be sure, some of Ossoff's strength with independents may be more about voters' discomfort with his Republican opponent, Congressman Mike Collins, who falsely insists Trump won the 2020 election in Georgia and has not disavowed his son-in-law's social media posts containing white nationalist content and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
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Trump → insist → content
Still, most Republicans are not flocking to Ossoff, as Collins tries to tie him to the far-left of the party and questions his experience.
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Collins → flock → experience
…and 34 more, not listed.
