As the most vulnerable Democratic senator seeking re-election this year, Jon Ossoff of Georgia would rather do most other things than talk about whether he wants to run for president in 2028.
A lot has gone right for Mr. Ossoff over the last 19 months. The first-term senator has proved to be a formidable fund-raiser. His fiery rhetoric accusing President Trump of corruption has drawn an online audience of millions. Gov. Brian Kemp, the state’s most popular Republican, passed on running against him.
And on Tuesday, Georgia Republicans nominated Representative Mike Collins, a Trump loyalist, to face Mr. Ossoff in the fall. The Democrat has already dubbed Mr. Collins a presidential “puppet” after working quietly for months to undermine Derek Dooley, the Republican who lost.
Despite his relentless disavowals that he has any interest in seeking the presidency, Mr. Ossoff is now regularly mentioned as a potential 2028 contender. There’s good reason for him not to talk about it: Georgia remains a difficult state for Democrats to win, and Mr. Ossoff, the only Democratic incumbent seeking re-election in a state that Mr. Trump won in 2024, can’t afford to turn away from the immediate challenge.
“He is not trying to be a national star,” said Jason Carter, who is the grandson of former President Jimmy Carter and has run for statewide office in Georgia. “He’s trying to be a good senator. If being a good senator turns you into a national star, we’ll all watch and see.”
A laserlike focus on his Senate race may wind up boosting Mr. Ossoff’s national profile.
Other Democrats considering presidential bids are rolling out policy proposals, visiting early primary states, hitting the podcast circuit, becoming regulars on cable news or making themselves unavoidable for comment.
Mr. Ossoff has done none of that, instead stumping around Georgia and insisting that’s where his focus lies. Mr. Ossoff has repeatedly denied any desire to run for president — “zero interest,” he told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
Yet his argument — that the Trump administration is fundamentally corrupt and threatens American democracy — is resonating on the ground and online, with a helpful boost from his Senate campaign.
His rallies are filmed and produced by his campaign team and have turned his digressions about the perils of the Trump administration into viral content for a growing audience of admirers. Footage is quickly circulated on social media. The broad reach of the clips has created for Mr. Ossoff the sort of exposure other Democrats can only dream of.
At a rally in February, Mr. Ossoff coined the term “Epstein class” to define Mr. Trump and his big-donor allies. The phrase instantly caught on with Democrats. At another rally, he targeted Mr. Trump, his family and his administration as “corrupt” and uninterested in helping regular Americans afford gas and groceries.
Even Hasan Piker, the left-wing, pro-Palestinian streamer, recently ranked Mr. Ossoff, a moderate Jewish senator, third on his presidential wish list, behind only progressive Representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York and Ro Khanna of California.
Mr. Ossoff wasted no time in framing Mr. Collins as unacceptable. After the results were in Tuesday night, the senator called his general election opponent “a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist currently under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars.”
Mr. Collins, in his victory speech, called Mr. Ossoff “a far-left liberal” and said the contest would be a challenge. “Jon Ossoff is going to have millions and millions of dollars poured in here from his New York and California buddies, the political establishment, the mainstream media and the global elites,” Mr. Collins told supporters.
The liberal attraction to Mr. Ossoff comes at a moment when his party, with no majorities in Congress and a dysfunctional and cash-strapped national committee, suffers from a leadership vacuum. Even with a score or more of potential presidential candidates, Democrats across the political spectrum are pining for a presidential contender around whom they can build a movement.
Mr. Ossoff has no signature policy agenda; he has been largely focused on Senate oversight of the Trump administration. He does not mix it up on social media as many of his Senate colleagues do. He sometimes conjures the winning political style of former President Barack Obama, from the cadence of his speeches to the stylized “O” logos at his rallies.
Yet his singular idea for what his party’s direction should be is resonating: Take the country back from Mr. Trump. And he delivers his searing critiques in a way that few other Democrats have been able to do, with crisp lines that travel well on social media.
Mr. Trump: “A failed president and a national disgrace.” The president’s sons: “Prince Eric and Prince Don.” The administration? “The Mar-a-Lago mafia.”
“A wave is building,” Mr. Ossoff told rapt supporters at a rally in Atlanta last month. “The kind that comes once a generation, when people have been pushed too far, and they decide all at once and all together that enough is enough.”
Mr. Ossoff, who declined an interview request for this article, grew up comfortably before entering national politics at age 29 in 2017. Although he lost a special election for a suburban Atlanta House seat that year, the nearly four-point race became an early sign of Democratic resurgence during Trump’s first term.
Four years later, he became the youngest senator elected to the chamber in 40 years, and one with little life experience, having worked only as a congressional aide and documentary film executive.
Republicans and Democrats alike say Mr. Ossoff must not take winning in November for granted. Though Democratic votes outnumbered Republican ones by more than 150,000 ballots in last month’s primary for governor, the party still lost two state Supreme Court races.
Democrats believe Mr. Collins’s avowed MAGA loyalty could hurt him among moderate and independent voters in a state that has been trending purple for several years. Mr. Ossoff makes a point of weaving him into his attacks on Mr. Trump.
At one recent rally, Mr. Ossoff dismissed Mr. Collins, whose father served in Congress for 12 years and also ran for the Senate, as “a congressman only because his daddy was a congressman.” He called him “pro-war, pro-tariff and pro-cutting your health care.”
Clipped and packaged for social media, the video received more than 1.8 million views on X.
Mr. Ossoff’s aides and supporters say the rallies have two core functions: drive local enthusiasm and boost national fund-raising.
“He thinks he needs to raise $200 million, and we don’t have $200 million just in Georgia,” said Lawrence Bell, a former top aide to Senator Raphael Warnock of Georgia.
Mr. Ossoff will indeed need a lot of money this year. Senate Leadership Fund, the main Senate Republican super PAC, has earmarked $44 million for the race. Its Democratic counterpart, Senate Majority PAC, reserved its first $20 million in television ads last month. Both groups, in addition to others, are likely to spend far more by November.
The Ossoff campaign has already raised $81 million and spent $53 million, according to his Federal Election Commission report.
Back home, voters say Mr. Ossoff’s focus on how the Trump administration is hurting their daily lives is resonating.
Reece Windjack, 25, a church choir teacher, drove about five hours from his home in rural Baxley, Ga., to see Mr. Ossoff in person. He said he appreciated that Mr. Ossoff focused both on corruption and health care. Mr. Windjack said he is uninsured, like many of his friends and neighbors, who go either without coverage or without enough of it.
“He doesn’t forget about small-town America, even when he’s fighting the Trump administration,” he said.
Even Republicans working to defeat him have admired his political acumen. Mr. Dooley, who lost to Mr. Collins in Tuesday’s runoff, said in a radio interview this month that Mr. Ossoff has “really good constituent services.”
“You never really see him grandstanding on CNN,” Mr. Dooley told a small gathering this month in rural Sandersville, Ga. “You don’t see him standing next to Chuck Schumer, A.O.C., waving the party flag.”
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