ATLANTA — U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff came home to Atlanta Saturday to rally core Democrats desperate for effective action now against President Donald Trump’s administration.
“Georgia will bow to no king!” Ossoff proclaimed at the end of a 20-minute speech that labeled Trump as corrupt, out of touch with the problems of regular people, and “trying to poison our democracy with fear and intimidation.”
“Atlanta, this is not a drill. Atlanta, this is not a bad dream,” said Ossoff, who could be the Republicans’ No. 1 Democratic target in the 2026 elections. “As citizens, this is the test of our lifetime. So tell me, Atlanta, are you ready to fight?”
Ossoff’s campaign tried to play down the idea that Saturday’s event was the launch of his 2026 reelection campaign, and he never specifically asked the 2,000 Democrats gathered in a music hall on Atlanta’s gentrified east side for their votes. But others, including fellow Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock, made that explicit, and Ossoff’s campaign handed out yard signs to people as they left.
It’s still so early that it’s not clear what Republicans will oppose the first-term Democrat. Many Republicans would like to see Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp enter the race. But the second-term governor has been holding back a decision and could opt instead to run for president in 2028 or to retire from politics. If Kemp declines to run, Republicans including U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter, Rich McCormick and Mike Collins could seek the nomination, as well as state Insurance Commissioner John King. U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene has also mused about a possible run for Georgia governor or Senate in 2026.
Any race in Georgia is likely to be closely contested and fantastically expensive. The twin Senate races in 2020, when Ossoff and Warnock narrowly won and flipped control of the Senate to Democrats, cost more than $900 million combined, according to OpenSecrets, which tracks political spending. Warnock’s 2022 reelection over Republican Herschel Walker cost more than $470 million, OpenSecrets found.
Ossoff, keeping his focus off 2026, tried to speak to the alarm that Democratic voters say they are feeling, and promising he was doing everything he could to fight back.
“Maybe right now you feel surrounded by darkness. You might be a little numb. You might be wondering if there’s a way out,” Ossoff said. “But Atlanta, we don’t have the luxury of despair.”
Ossoff tried to carve out a lane as a traditional senator who could do bipartisan work in his first four years. With Democrats restive and in the minority, he may be looking to shift his tone to something more antagonistic towards Trump. But some themes that Ossoff sounded Saturday are consistent with his first four years, including opposition to what he sees as corruption rooted in the influence of money in politics.
“This is why things don’t work for ordinary people,” Ossoff said. “It’s not because of trans kids or woke college students or because our new archenemy, Canada. The corruption is why you pay a fortune for prescriptions. The corruption is why your insurance claim keeps getting denied. The corruption is why hedge funds get to buy up all the houses in your neighborhood.”
Ossoff showcased people who said they’re being harmed by Trump’s policies, but in the hometown of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, it wasn’t hard to find others in the audience. Bev Roberts, attending with her mother, described herself as a “Trump refugee,” saying she was laid off by the U.S. Agency for International Development and forced to come home from Cairo. Like many Democrats, Roberts is unhappy with what she sees as ineffective opposition thus far.
“I want to hear practical solutions, I don’t want to hear rhetoric,” Roberts said before the speech. “I think Democrats need to change.”
Some questioned whether a campaign rally was suited to this moment. Thomas McCormick, who drove 140 miles to Atlanta from the central Georgia town of Dublin, said he’s not seeing any effective opposition from Democrats, with the possible exception of Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy. He expressed disgust with Saturday’s event and mused about supporting a third party, saying that Democrats can’t wait until 2026, likening the impact of Trump’s work so far to the explosion of the Hindenburg airship in 1937.
“That’s two years, that’s two years of damage,” McCormick said, as strains of “Macarena” echoed through the hall before the rally began. “I have been on the left side of politics my whole life. This is the best I’ve got?”