Jon Ossoff’s Big Opportunity Beyond His Own Election

By

Ed Kilgore,

political columnist for Intelligencer since 2015

The perfect picture for Georgia Democrats in 2026.

Right now, U.S. senator Jon Ossoff is enjoying a bit of a rock-star moment. He’s raised an enormous haul of cash for his reelection campaign. He’s regularly running well ahead of his Republican opponent, Congressman Mike Collins, in general-election polling. Despite his protestations of disinterest in the White House, he’s turning up on lists of 2028 Democratic presidential possibilities. And a recent Emerson poll showed him beating either J.D. Vance or Marco Rubio in a theoretical presidential election matchup two years from now. To top it all off, Ossoff’s campaign-trail focus on Trump administration and GOP corruption has struck a major chord among Democrats nationally. Most recently, an offhand snarky comment he made about Donald Trump just wanting to “travel around with Natalie [Harp]” has gone viral and provoked angry squawks from Trump and his posse.