It’s only February 2025 but the blockbuster 2026 Georgia Senate race is heating up.
Sen. Jon Ossoff (Ga.), the most endangered Senate Democratic incumbent, is already facing GOP attack ads on his home airwaves. And top Senate Republicans are kicking off a lobbying campaign to convince popular two-term GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to mount a challenge to Ossoff.
Senate Majority Leader John Thune and NRSC Chair Tim Scott have personally met with Kemp in a bid to get him to run. But it’s still an open question whether the 61-year-old Republican governor even wants to be a senator and the GOP persuasion efforts remain in their initial stages.
There’s no doubt that Kemp represents Ossoff’s most formidable competitor and would clear the GOP primary field if he does run. Yet Republicans acknowledge that knocking off Ossoff is no easy feat.
The first-term senator will have access to huge sums of cash in what may become the most expensive Senate race ever. There’s skepticism that President Donald Trump’s winning 2024 coalition will turn out in similar numbers in a midterm year. And Ossoff is regarded as a disciplined politician with a head-down approach focusing on bipartisan legislative wins.
Ossoff declined an interview request, but the Georgia Democrat sent over a statement touting his constituent services and pledging to expand his electoral coalition during the campaign.
“Our campaign will be the most aggressive turnout effort in state history,” Ossoff said in a statement. “We’ll be huge and efficient and totally relentless.”
The 37-year-old incumbent, who won his seat in 2021 along with Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-Ga.), is far more likely to introduce bills with conservative GOP senators than to appear on cable news.
Just this week, Ossoff and Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) unveiled a bill to support human trafficking victims. Ossoff has also worked with Blackburn on legislation tackling online child exploitation, in addition to partnering with former Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) on federal prison reform. Through his bipartisan work, he’s even won plaudits from Senate Judiciary Committee Chair Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa).
But these topics are unlikely to be the animating issues of the 2026 midterms.
A recent Americans For Prosperity ad, part of a $400,000 ad buy targeting Ossoff, calls on the Democrat to renew the Trump tax cuts. AFP says the ad is just the start of a seven-figure commitment to mobilize a grassroots effort to hold Ossoff accountable.
The NRSC also has Ossoff in their sights and slammed him even after he voted for the Laken Riley Act last month, accusing Ossoff of flip-flopping on the measure.
The NRSC is pointing to March 2024, when all Senate Democrats opposed a procedural vote that would have offered a GOP amendment to prohibit undocumented immigrants charged or accused of certain burglary crimes from obtaining legal status. We should note this differs from the enacted version of the Laken Riley Act, which requires federal law enforcement to detain undocumented immigrants accused of crimes like burglary, theft or assaulting law enforcement.
“Jon Ossoff’s spineless complacency with his Party’s open border policies enabled a criminal illegal alien to murder a young woman in his own state,” NRSC spokesperson Joanna Rodriguez said in a statement.
Republicans see Ossoff’s tendency to go along with the Democratic Party line, as well as his 2024 vote to restrict arms sales to Israel, as big liabilities next year. Plus the retirement announcement by Michigan Democratic Sen. Gary Peters — the only other Democratic incumbent running in a state that President Donald Trump won last year — makes Ossoff the top target for Senate Republicans.
Democrats feeling confident: DSCC Chair Kirsten Gillibrand told us she has “every faith he will hold his seat” and hailed Ossoff as “an extraordinarily strong and effective senator.”
“Ossoff will be just fine,” Warnock told us. “I’ll put him up against whoever they put up.”
We’ll note that Ossoff currently has $5 million on hand, per his latest FEC filing.
