Jon Ossoff might not have won the 2017 special election for Tom Price’s old House seat, but the Georgia native emerged from the fight as one of the most viable Democratic candidates the state had seen in decades.
Now, he’s locked in a tight runoff race against GOP Sen. David Perdue that will determine which party controls the U.S. Senate.
Ossoff’s ground game, cash pile, and big-name endorsements have some Republicans worried that the 33-year-old could destroy their razor-thin edge in the upper chamber of Congress.
Born in Atlanta and raised in Northlake, Georgia, Ossoff has pitched himself as a reformer who will root out corruption in Washington.
Among other things, he said he wants to expand Obamacare, enact criminal justice reform, defend Roe v. Wade, and get dark money out of politics. It’s an ambitious agenda, but one Ossoff said he’s ready to tackle.
Ossoff got his start in politics early on. After reading the memoir of civil rights legend John Lewis in high school, Ossoff, then 16, contacted the congressman’s Atlanta office and got an internship.
After his internship, Ossoff headed to Washington and got his bachelor’s degree from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Services and his master’s from the London School of Economics.
While in Washington, he scored a position as a legislative aide to Rep. Hank Johnson.
Ossoff called his time on Capitol Hill rewarding but also “deeply disillusioning.”
After graduation, he used an inheritance from his grandfather to buy an ownership stake in a London-based film company that he later renamed Insight TWI.
The production company works with journalists to create documentaries on corruption. Its projects have included the 2016 BBC investigation Girls, Guns and ISIS, as well as the follow-up, Face to Face with ISIS.
Ossoff turned his attention back to politics after President Trump was elected in 2016.
When Ossoff heard that Price had been tapped by Trump to head up the Department of Health and Human Services, he announced his candidacy to run in the April 18, 2017, race.
Ossoff led with 48.1% of the vote while his closest challenger, Republican Karen Handel, received 19.8%. The other 16 candidates in the packed field made up the rest. In Georgia, a candidate running for a statewide-elected office has to win with 50% of the vote. Since neither met the threshold, Ossoff and Handel went head-to-head in a runoff.
The House runoff race shattered national fundraising records and put Ossoff on the map as an up-and-comer.
His campaign raised more than $23 million, of which two-thirds was made by small-dollar donations. Handel raised most of her money through support from super PACs and other outside groups. Combined spending by the campaigns and outside groups reached more than $55 million, making the runoff the most expensive House race in U.S. history at the time.
Republicans hammered Ossoff on his lack of experience and ties to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, arguing a win for him would be one for Pelosi.
Ossoff, in turn, changed his run into a referendum on Trump, which backfired.
Ossoff lost the race to Handel, 51.78% to 48.22%. Democrats tried to put a positive spin on the outcome by saying he scooped up every Democratic vote available and garnered 32,220 more votes than he had in the general election.
Still, his loss was particularly demoralizing to the party.
Following the election, Ossoff went back to his documentary work and married Alisha Kramer, his high school girlfriend, who is now an OB-GYN doctor.
Ossoff decided to give it another go in 2020 when he ran for the U.S. Senate seat. History repeated itself, and neither Ossoff nor his closest competitor, Perdue, claimed the majority, forcing a Jan. 5 runoff.
This time, though, the stakes are much higher.
The rematch between Ossoff and Perdue, as well as one between Raphael Warnock and GOP Sen. Kelly Loeffler, has thrust Georgia into the center of the nation’s political fray. The outcome of the races will determine just two weeks before President-elect Joe Biden’s inauguration which party will control the Senate.
If Ossoff and Warnock win their races, it would give Democrats a 50-50 split, with Vice President-elect Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Defeating Perdue, who is popular with conservatives and has gotten Trump’s stamp of approval, won’t be an easy task for Ossoff.
Going into Election Day, Perdue held a slight lead over Ossoff.
Of the nearly 5 million votes cast in Georgia on Nov. 3, Perdue won 2,462,617 votes, or 49.7%, while Ossoff pulled in 2,374,519, or 47.9%.
The slim margin separating the two shocked some GOP insiders and put the Republican Party on notice.
Georgia had been a Republican stronghold in the South, but the 2020 presidential elections flipped the reliably red state blue. Biden became the first Democratic presidential candidate to win the state since Bill Clinton in 1992.
While Democrats celebrated Biden’s win, Trump complained about Georgia and its election process.
He has repeatedly used Twitter to claim without proof that the state’s election was rigged.
He raked Republican Gov. Brian Kemp and Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger over the coals and accused them of helping Democrats cheat the system and win.
Trump’s comments have created a divide among the GOP in Georgia that Ossoff’s camp has seized on.
Most recently, Ossoff grabbed headlines when he stood by himself on a Georgia stage, debating an empty podium. Perdue was invited to show up for the debate but declined.
Since then, Ossoff has gone on the offensive, trolling Perdue on social media and mocking him at every turn.
