Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), a Jewish Democrat who has become more critical of Israel as it continued to wage war against Hamas, was re-elected in a state that Republicans initially had hoped to flip, according to the Associated Press.
The AP called the race at 7:55 p.m.
Ossoff had 1,344,581 votes, 64.5%, well ahead of Rep. Mike Collins (R-Ga.), who had 739,192 or 35.5%. At press time, 46% of the votes had been counted.
As late as August, Inside Elections, which tracks congressional races, gave Ossoff just a slight edge in the race to retain his seat, but by the end of October, he was rated as a strong favorite to win a second term.
Collins’ campaign was caught up in controversy over its ties to white supremacists. J Street Action Fund ran an ad attacking the lawmaker over those links.
The Republican’s son-in-law, David Alan Scheer II, has shared antisemitic posts and Nazi imagery and has promoted white supremacist groups. And his former chief of staff, Kip Talley, joined a group chat with Holocaust denier Nick Fuentes and white supremacist Richard Spencer, Slate reported.
Ossoff has supported funding for Israel’s defense, such as Iron Dome, and condemned the Hamas-led Oct. 7 attacks but lately voted against sales of offensive weapons such as rifles, military bulldozers and 1,000-pound bombs to Israel, according to the American Jewish Committee.
Following Ossoff’s vote in November 2024 to block some weapons sales to Israel, the Atlanta Jewish Federation and other Jewish groups published an open letter to the senator saying that his position “demonstrates that your commitment to Israel’s security is not ironclad” but rather “comes at the expense of Israeli defense.”
While refusing to accuse Israel of “genocide,” Ossoff said at a debate last month that “there is no doubt in my mind that Israeli forces prosecuting the war in Gaza violated the law of armed conflict and international humanitarian law.”
Ossoff has been mentioned as a potential Democratic presidential nominee in 2028. He says he has no interest in running for the White House.
