Jon Ossoff, usually a head down senator, has found a formula to excite Democrats

Sen. Jon Ossoff greets supporters before speaking during a campaign rally at Center Stage in Atlanta on August 16, 2026. Alyssa Pointer For NPR hide caption

ATLANTA — On paper, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia should be among the most vulnerable incumbents this year. He is the only Senate Democrat defending a seat in a state President Trump won in 2024.

But the race has not turned into the nail-biter most anticipated, and Democrats outside Georgia are taking notice – at a time when the party is debating how to escape the political wilderness and win back a majority in Congress.

"He reminds me of Obama, honestly," says 28-year-old Courtney Rogers, who came of age as the Obama years gave way to Trump. In Ossoff, the first millennial senator, Rogers sees traces of an earlier era.

Rogers was waiting to buy an Ossoff T-shirt at an Atlanta rally this month. Nearby Rebecca Bruno and Beth Louise arrived already wearing theirs.

The two friends met while knocking doors for Ossoff's 2020 Senate campaign, when he and the Rev. Raphael Warnock flipped Georgia's Senate seats blue for the first time in a generation.

Ossoff arrived on the national stage three years earlier as he came close to flipping a suburban Atlanta House seat in an early test of the Trump resistance.

Prior to that race, Ossoff had run a documentary film company focused on corruption — now a throughline in campaign speeches alleging graft in Trump's orbit.