Democrat Jon Ossoff wins Georgia US Senate race

Incumbent Democratic US Senator Jon Ossoff has won re-election in the state of Georgia, one of the midterm cycle’s marquee contests. He has defeated Republican Congressman Mike Collins, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump who faced intense scrutiny during the campaign regarding alleged ties to people espousing white supremacist ideology. Ossoff, who has served as a US senator since 2021, campaigned on affordability, healthcare, and government accountability. Collins, meanwhile, focused on the president’s agenda, immigration enforcement and reducing the size of the government. Republicans had hoped to defeat Ossoff, the first Jewish senator in a state that backed former President Joe Biden in 2020 before reversing course and narrowly supporting Trump four years later. Ossoff, seen by some as a possible contender for the 2028 Democratic presidential nomination, will rejoin his fellow Democrat in the Senate, Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s first Black senator, who is also rumoured to be considering a run for the presidency. Georgia’s US Senate seats were critical for building the Democratic Party’s power in Congress and in the South, a largely Republican stronghold. Ossoff was leading Collins 63 percent to 29 percent with 56 percent of votes counted, according to the Associated Press news agency. Trump won Georgia narrowly in 2024 after losing the state to Biden in the 2020 presidential election. In 2023, Trump and others were charged in Georgia with attempting to overturn the 2020 election loss by pressuring a senior state official to recalculate the results in his favour.