Ossoff tore up the old Democratic playbook and blazed his own trail at events throughout Georgia this week. He highlighted his work with Senate Republicans, warned of the existential threat posed by the Trump administration, and attacked Republicans, saying they lacked the courage to stop what they knew was wrong.
An excellent illustration was Ossoff’s speech to the Atlanta Rotary Club last week. He gave a salute to the audience’s veterans before outlining his efforts with Republicans to construct new enlisted housing on Georgia military facilities and fully finance the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
He informed the noon audience that he had established solid and productive bipartisan ties. Many of my Republican coworkers are both friends and partners.
There have been a lot of Ossoff-friendly Republicans, if you’re wondering who they are. For two years, he and U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin co-chaired a group that looked into conditions in jails across the country, including the Fulton County Jail. Along with Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee, he supported several child welfare initiatives. He even collaborated with Senate Majority Leader John Thune before Thune became the head of the Senate Republican caucus.
However, as soon as Ossoff introduced himself to the Rotarians, he paused to caution them that the Republican president is to blame for these unusual times.
Ossoff declared, “This situation is untenable.” These disputes over public policy are not your typical ones; they are a bad way to go.
He had only just begun. He claimed that Trump’s trade policy is a game of tariff musical chairs and that the president’s deployment of National Guard troops in Washington, D.C., is an exercise of power by someone who has made it known that he respects and envies the possessions and authority of authoritarian rulers everywhere.
Ossoff then cautioned that Trump’s destruction of scientific research is a grave act of self-harm for the country. Additionally, he informed the business leaders that it is time for them all to voice their opposition to it.
He asserted that silence is not safe.
Ossoff wanted to leave the suits with a clear message, but it was a harsh one for those accustomed to a friendly policy address over a hot chicken lunch.
His next stop was the annual Georgia Chamber lunch in Columbus, where he unloaded on Trump for putting Georgia firms at risk in his tit-for-tat tariff war after presenting a similar bipartisan report card on his efforts to improve military procurement and veterans health care.
Georgia is a complex state, thus it’s a complex message for the upcoming election year. According to the AJC’s most recent poll, Republicans’ enormous tax and spending bill is already proving unpopular, and Trump lost Georgia in 2020 but won in 2024.
In an effort to change the bill’s name to the Working Families Tax Cut, which sounds much better than the $1 billion in Medicaid cuts that the new law also included, Vice President JD Vance traveled to Peachtree City on Thursday. However, it was clear that Ossoff was the other reason Vance traveled to Georgia.
Vance reminded the conservative audience, which included all three of the Republicans running against Ossoff the following year, that while Jon Ossoff doesn’t care about the people of Georgia, we do.
Additionally, he asserted that Ossoff will act as though he has always backed Trump’s agenda as the election draws near.
That’s unlikely after spending the last two weeks watching the senator attack Trump. Vance was sent by the president on a small mission to sell the bill that can’t sell itself, according to Ossoff, who called the vice president embarrassing before Vance ever arrived in town.
According to people close to Ossoff, the GOP’s cooperation and criticism of Trump aren’t just a gimmick created by consultants to help him win in 2026. He truly feels that way.
In an election year, though, is it good politics?
According to veteran Georgia GOP strategist Brian Robinson, Ossoff’s tactic is the only one available.
While the assaults on Trump center on the one thing that unites Democrats: opposition to the president, Robinson said his emphasis on bipartisanship targets the deciders, including those who voted for Kemp and Warnock in 2022. Whether enough decision-makers will concur with him on Trump is the risk.
Georgia remains a moderately Republican state to Robinson and the majority of operatives. According to him, Ossoff must also win over those who would rather back a Republican in an election but would give a Democrat some thought in the proper situation.
Ossoff might or might not have those favorable conditions the following season. However, if they do, he is developing the playbook to make it happen.
