Jon Ossoff faces a competitive and crowded primary to take on first-term Republican Sen. David Perdue. | Joe Raedle/Getty Images elections Jon Ossoff launches run for Senate in Georgia

Jon Ossoff, the former congressional candidate who lost a nationally watched special election in Georgia in 2017, launched a campaign for Senate on Tuesday, calling the state a critical battleground that could decide the Senate majority.

Ossoff, 32, became a political sensation during his run for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District in 2017, one in a series of special elections that attracted wide notice amid backlash to President Donald Trump before Democrats took the House majority in the midterm election.


Now, the Democrat hopes to reignite that energy as he faces a competitive and crowded primary to take on first-term Republican Sen. David Perdue.

Georgia has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in two decades, but Democrats see the changing state as a major opportunity in 2020 after several close statewide losses in 2018. Democrats need to net three seats to win back the Senate majority, if they also win the presidency, and they have the opportunity to go after two Republican seats in Georgia alone, after GOP Sen. Johnny Isakson announced his resignation and triggered a special election next November.

“Georgia is the most competitive state in the country and the Senate majority will be decided in Georgia,” Ossoff said in an interview.

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A former congressional aide who runs an investigative documentary film company, Ossoff described himself as a “proven anti-corruption fighter” and said that message would be central to his bid.He faces a competitive primary: already running are former Columbus Mayor Teresa Tomlinson, Clarkston Mayor Ted Terry and Sarah Riggs Amico, a businesswoman who lost the 2018 race for lieutenant governor.

Ossoff highlighted the grassroots volunteers and donors who backed his congressional bid as a sign that he can build a network to win a battleground Senate race. He also said that having been through the onslaught of attacks during the $55 million House race prepared him for a heavyweight Senate campaign.

Ossoff, 32, will likely face a similar array of attacks from Republicans who will bash him as inexperienced and without credentials to be elected to the Senate.

"Failed congressional candidate Jon Ossoff's serial resume inflation and extreme left-wing views will fit in with the rest of the crowded Democratic primary but will stand in sharp contrast to David Perdue's positive record of delivering results for all of Georgia,” said Nathan Brand, a spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee.

Ossoff brushed off coming attacks.

“What I learned having been through the fire is that I will not ever be intimidated from telling my own story and touting my own accomplishments by inevitable partisan smears,” Ossoff said.

Ossoff declined to comment on the other Democrats in the race, though the primary will likely be a competitive affair. National Democrats have yet to pick sides in the contest.

He said he remains friends with and is in regular contact with Stacey Abrams, the party’s nominee for governor in 2018 who passed on running for Senate. Abrams is likely to remain neutral in the primary, and Ossoff declined to discuss private conversations with her.

But Ossoff does have powerful backing: Rep. John Lewis, the civil rights icon and longtime Georgia congressman, supports his Senate bid. Ossoff said in the interview he was “honored” to have the endorsement, and plans to launch a voter registration effort with the congressman later this month.

In a statement, Lewis said he would do “everything in my power to support Jon’s election to the United States Senate.

“Jon’s 2017 campaign sparked a flame that is burning brighter than ever, in Georgia and across the country,” Lewis said. “Like the many thousands Jon has already organized and inspired, I am ready to work tirelessly to elect him.”

Republican Gov. Brian Kemp will appoint a replacement for Isakson, and a number of Democrats are considering running in the special election for that Senate seat. But Ossoff opted to join the race against Perdue.

“David Perdue in half a decade has not come down from his private island to hold a single public town hall,” Ossoff said of the Republican senator. “We are going to raise a grassroots army unlike anything Georgia has seen to defeat him."

He will likely rely on the small-dollar donor network built during his House campaign, and he will begin with a head start over his primary opponents: Ossoff had $425,000 remaining in his House account as of June 30, according to his most recent Federal Election Commission disclosure. Tomlinson had $350,000 on hand through the same time period, and neither of the other two candidates have filed fundraising reports yet.

