How do you run for president in the 2020s? By becoming popular online. That is how Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia has emerged as a contender for the Democratic nomination in 2028.
Ossoff has become an “internet sensation” churning out viral content for his current Senate reelection campaign, said The New York Times. His argument that President Donald Trump’s administration is “fundamentally corrupt and threatens American democracy” is “resonating on the ground and online” with Democratic voters who liken him to a young Barack Obama. Trump is a “failed president and a national disgrace” Ossoff said in one widely seen video. Ossoff is refusing to talk about 2028 for now, said the Times, keeping a “laserlike focus” on winning his Georgia campaign. He has nonetheless earned Trump’s ire. “Os(jerk!)off” is a “joke” who will lose his Senate seat in November, the president said on Truth Social.
Instead of pitting Democrats against Republicans, Ossoff is trying to define U.S. politics as the “wealthy elite versus average Americans,” Perry Bacon said at The New Republic. The senator helped popularize the term “Epstein class” to evoke “super-wealthy individuals” like Bill Gates and even Bill Clinton who have left the U.S. working class behind. Progressive Democrats appreciate Ossoff’s “willingness to slam corporations and the super-wealthy,” while moderates like that he “doesn’t push Medicare for All” or “other ideas that they worry scare off swing voters.” That “artful straddling of the center-left divide” is putting him “high on the 2028 lists.”
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Ossoff is “becoming a rock star” in a “divided” Democratic Party, Lindsey Granger said at The Hill. He is just 39 years old, making him the “youngest sitting U.S. senator,” and he has proven his ability to “blend populist economic messaging with a more moderate record.” All of this matters to Democrats who are “searching for a new generation of leaders who can connect with younger voters” and compete in battleground states. Ossoff still has to win his Senate reelection campaign, but he is already “controlling the conversation before the real fight even begins.”
“Sorry, liberals. Jon Ossoff isn’t running for president,” Patricia Murphy said at The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. He has “zero interest” in running for president in 2028, Ossoff said in a statement to the paper. Presidential speculation surrounding him “has only grown louder online with each campaign rally” despite that declaration, Murphy said, but Ossoff is “strategic enough” to stay focused on the “relationships he’s cultivated” across Georgia as he fights for reelection.
What next?
First, the Senate. Before Ossoff can think about the Democratic nomination “he must win reelection in a swing state that went for Trump,” said USA Today. A loss in Georgia “would create a much tougher map for the party to flip control of the Senate” in the midterm elections. An Ossoff victory, meanwhile, would signal that he “successfully appeals to a broad coalition and could be a viable presidential candidate.”
