Jon Ossoff has won reelection to the U.S. Senate in Georgia, defeating Republican Rep. Mike Collins, according to a race call by The Associated Press. Ossoff was the only incumbent Democratic senator defending a seat in a state carried by President Trump in 2024.
The contest had been viewed a year earlier as one of the cycle’s marquee Senate races. Collins faced scrutiny over connections to family members and former staffers who had expressed white nationalist and antisemitic views, and continued to endorse Trump’s false claims of widespread fraud in the 2020 election.
Ossoff, a former congressional aide and documentary filmmaker, first gained national attention during a 2017 special election for a suburban House seat. After winning a Senate seat in Georgia’s 2021 runoff, he became known for questioning Trump appointees at congressional hearings. During the campaign, clips of his rally speeches criticizing alleged graft in Trump’s orbit circulated widely online.
The result came in a state where Democrats flipped both Senate seats in 2021, while Republican candidates have otherwise continued to win nearly every other statewide race. In 2022, Democratic Sen. Raphael Warnock narrowly retained his seat in a runoff.
Sources: NPR News.