Vulnerable Senate Democrat Ossoff seeks to channel Trump outrage on tough road to reelection

(CNN) — Jon Ossoff, the nation’s most endangered Senate Democrat, sees a path for reelection in a state President Donald Trump won in 2024 and at a time when Democrats are suffering rock-bottom approval ratings.

He plans to go all out against Trump.

“I have never seen opposition energy like this — from dyed-in-the-wool Democrats to moderate Republicans,” Ossoff told CNN before making a rather bold prediction at a time when his party is still reeling from the fall elections.

“The energy and opposition, I believe, is building toward a landslide victory in 2026,” the Georgia Democrat said. “A landslide victory for Democrats across the country.”

Vulnerable senators in purple states often shift to the center ahead of reelection, seeking to spotlight how they work with the president of the opposite party as they court moderate and swing voters.

But Ossoff is making a starkly different and potentially riskier calculation: That swing voters will be alienated by Trump’s dramatic push to expand his power, target his foes and dismantle the federal government — and that the 2026 elections will ultimately be determined by the party that can bring out its base. His thinking offers a fresh window into how a swing-state Democrat will try to navigate the politics of Trump in next year’s midterms.

“I think the president is turning off swing voters by acting so recklessly — by abusing his power,” said Ossoff, the lone Senate Democratic incumbent running in a state that Trump won in 2024.

In a wide-ranging interview with CNN last week, Ossoff doubled down on his contention that Trump is “poisoning democracy,” defended his vote to block a GOP spending bill with a government shutdown looming and attacked senior Trump administration officials for their role in the now-infamous Signal chat before striking Houthis in Yemen.

“He’s reckless, he’s unqualified. He should have resigned yesterday,” Ossoff said of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth. “Any military officer who so recklessly handled or inadvertently disclosed this kind of information would lose their job, their security clearance and possibly face a court martial.”

Democrats face a difficult path next year to win back the Senate, currently at a 53-47 GOP majority. Three incumbents have opted to retire, including in two battlegrounds of Michigan and New Hampshire, and they have limited pickup opportunities — with North Carolina and Maine at the top of the list. But the Georgia seat represents a pivotal pickup opportunity for Republicans — with tens of millions expected to be spent in the race.

The National Republican Senatorial Committee, which is planning an aggressive push to knock off Ossoff, took umbrage with the senator’s comments about Trump and the GOP — and took a shot at him over immigration, a sign of the Republican attack plan against the first-term Democrat.

“Instead of a working with President Trump to keep Georgia families safe, Ossoff is leading the fight against efforts to prevent tragedies like this,” said Joanna Rodriguez, the NRSC spokeswoman, referring to a 21-year-old Honduran national who entered the US illegally in 2021 and was accused of murdering a woman earlier his month in the Atlanta suburbs. “It’s shameful and Georgia deserves better.”

But Ossoff is trying to navigate his own line on immigration. He broke with much of his party when he was one of a dozen Senate Democrats who voted earlier this year to enact the Laken Riley Act, a GOP law to require detention of undocumented migrants charged with certain crimes and named after the 22-year-old Georgia student who was killed last year.

Yet while he contends then-President Joe Biden’s tougher border restrictions came “far too late,” Ossoff is attacking Trump’s deportation and detention policies as “draconian.”

“And I think the American people are turning against it,” he said of Trump’s immigration orders.

Kemp eyes a run, Ossoff eyes MTG

While Ossoff makes the case against Trump, the Republican field in Georgia’s 2026 Senate race has yet to materialize.

Gov. Brian Kemp, who won reelection by more than 7 percentage points in 2022, just two years after Biden flipped the state blue, is being wooed by national Republicans to jump into the race.

Ossoff declined to weigh in on Kemp’s prospects, but then turned his attention to Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA firebrand and staunch Trump ally.

“We will see who runs,” Ossoff said. “It may be the governor. President Trump has said that he would back Marjorie Taylor Green to run for United States Senate. I don’t think that she’s got the guts to do it. But she would be a disaster in the United States Senate.”

Pressed on whether it might be difficult to defeat Kemp, Ossoff said: “I’m not going to speculate about who’s tougher. I’m not going to get into the punditry in the horse race. I will be ready for anyone who challenges me for this seat.”

Other Republicans are also eyeing the seat. GOP Rep. Buddy Carter, a longtime veteran of Georgia politics, told CNN on Thursday he is looking at entering the race.

“I was with the governor yesterday. He’s tied up right now,” Carter said of Kemp. “His focus is on finishing up the [state legislative] session. They finish next Friday the 4th. After that, I’m sure he’ll make a decision. So we’ll see what happens.”

“When he makes a decision, I’ll make a decision,” Carter said.

But Ossoff is wasting no time in trying to rally his base.

After winning support from liberals for voting against a GOP spending bill earlier this month — and being accused by the NRSC for effectively threatening a damaging government shutdown — the young Democrat held a rally in Atlanta last weekend with a fiery rebuke of Trump, saying the president has launched a “power grab unprecedented in our history” and is “trying to poison our democracy with fear and intimidation.”

Asked why he chose to make that argument in state that swung back to Trump, Ossoff didn’t hesitate.

“Because it’s true, and because it’s urgent and it requires us to push back,” he said.

CNN’s Sarah Ferris contributed to this report.

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