Jon Ossoff’s “combative centrism”

Why the Georgia senator is surging with his party right now

Since losing to Donald Trump in 2024, Democrats have been desperate for a leader who can help turn their fortunes around and unify their increasingly fractured party. But identifying that leader has been no easy task, and the party is unlikely to settle on one until voters choose a presidential nominee in 2028.

One name, however, has emerged this summer as a contender, offering a potential window into where many Democratic voters’ minds are: Georgia Senator Jon Ossoff.

Shortly after Trump took office for the second time, survey data showed that many Democrats were of two minds. They saw a need for their party to moderate on policy, but they also yearned for leaders who would stand up to Trump. This idea was best summed up as “moderate and fight,” or “combative centrism.” Many aspiring party leaders, such as Gavin Newsom, JB Pritzker, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have been eager to lean into the second part of that equation, but they have largely refused to embrace the first half of it.

Ossoff, however, has struck more of a balance. He holds a mix of views that offer both the left and more moderate Democrats something to like, and he has won favor with both groups through his ability to take the fight to Trump—and to do so effectively. Rather than resorting to the reactionary histrionics of the Resistance in his critiques, Ossoff has identified places where the president is most vulnerable, especially with the broader public, and applied pressure.

At a February campaign event, for example, he hit Trump over corruption, which many Americans believe has become a problem in the White House. Ossoff also framed these attacks in terms of their real-world consequences for ordinary people: “We were told that MAGA was for working-class Americans… But this is a government of, by, and for the ultra-rich. It’s the wealthiest Cabinet ever. This is the Epstein class… They are the elites they pretend to hate.” He added, “If you’re Steve Bannon…how do you sell any of this? [Trump] is literally closing rural clinics and hospitals to cut taxes for George Soros and Elon Musk.”

Additionally, Ossoff has struck at the absurdity of the president’s continued 2020 election denial. In a recent confirmation hearing for DNI nominee Jay Clayton, Ossoff pressed Clayton to say, under oath, which candidate won that election. After Clayton made clear he wouldn’t answer, Ossoff asked simply, “Isn’t it humiliating to be unable to answer this question? To have to indulge the president’s delusions? We know, you know, everybody in this room knows the truthful answer to that question. Why can you not give it?” In another hearing, he confronted Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth over the war in Iran with a similarly direct line of questioning.

Ossoff has also shown he can hit Trump close to home. At a recent rally, he delivered a critique of how Trump has handled the conflict with Iran. In the middle of it, he slipped in a personal jab at the president, saying, “He doesn’t want to do the job. He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the Emir of Qatar.”

The remark was a reference to Natalie Harp, a young, female, Trump aide who has frequently accompanied the president on trips to Mar-a-Lago and his golf club in Bedminster, New Jersey. Ossoff’s calculated quip generated swift backlash from Trump’s allies because it was clearly meant to revive speculation about his marital infidelity. And, as Semafor has reported, some of those allies are “unnerved” by Harp’s close proximity to Trump, with one acknowledging that the strong pushback was because “the first lady doesn’t like these types of things” and Trump gets “furious” about personal topics.

Of course, Trump’s personal transgressions have rarely affected his political standing over the past 10 years. But the response from Trump World suggests they recognize Ossoff’s ability to identify Trump’s weak spots and exploit them—something the president is usually known for doing to his opponents.

All this has undoubtedly pleased many Democrats and contributed to their growing interest in Ossoff as a possible 2028 contender. He also has many of the attributes that have historically helped his party compete for the White House:

• He is a fairly popular, first-term senator from a swing state that Trump won two years ago. His penchant for bipartisanship, relatively moderate Senate record, and reputation for strong constituent services have helped him attract cross-partisan support. In a recent Fox News poll, Ossoff not only led his Republican opponent, Congressman Mike Collins, by 13 points, but he earned 10 percent from Republicans (including 23% from non-MAGA Republicans) and a whopping 68 percent from independents.¹

• He has rejected pushes from the Democrats’ left flank to embrace policies that have limited support among the broader public, like Medicare for All, the Green New Deal, defunding the police, abolishing ICE, and expanding the Supreme Court. He also crossed party lines on immigration to support the Laken Riley Act.

• He fares relatively well with working-class voters, whom Democrats have struggled with throughout the Trump era. The same Fox News poll showed Ossoff leading Collins by 12 points with non-college voters (56% to 44%), including winning 37% of white non-college voters—far better than the 21% support Kamala Harris received from the same cohort in Georgia in 2024.

• He is young and charismatic, and it’s not just Democrats who see the value in this. One of his former Republican opponents, Congressman Buddy Carter, said of him, “Look, this guy’s no slouch. He’s pretty sharp, he’s articulate, he’s young, he’s handsome, he talks well. You better have somebody who can go toe to toe with him.” At just 39 years old, he’s also the youngest member of the Senate and can claim to represent generational change not just for his party but—if he does run for president—the White House, too.

Of course, Ossoff has some vulnerabilities as well. He has sided with Democrats on the 20% side of some high-profile “80–20” issues. Some have also noted that Ossoff’s viral moments have come in tightly scripted environments, such as campaign rallies or Senate hearings, and that it’s unclear whether his composure and carefully crafted lines of attack will carry over into less-structured settings such as a presidential debate.

Then there is the elephant in the room: it remains to be seen whether Ossoff’s Jewish identity will be a liability for him at a time when Democrats’ souring views toward Israel may be engendering greater levels of antisemitism. This isn’t theoretical, either. During the 2024 Democratic “veepstakes,” Pennsylvania Governor Josh Shapiro, who is Jewish, faced significantly more opposition from progressive and pro-Palestinian activists than Tim Walz did—even though Shapiro had been vocally critical of Benjamin Netanyahu and held broadly similar positions on Israel as other contenders.

This could be a preview of what’s in store for Ossoff. Though he has been critical of Netanyahu and how Israel has conducted its war with Hamas, he has also expressed unequivocal support for Israel in the not-too-distant past and refused to support some efforts to restrict U.S. arms sales to them.

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On paper, Ossoff possesses many of the attributes Democrats have historically valued in presidential candidates: he is young, charismatic, fairly moderate, and capable of pressing an effective case against the opposition. There’s a reason Republicans are taking his rise seriously. His approach to politics has served him well in Georgia.

The question now is whether he is capable of translating his success at home to the national stage. If he can help bridge Democrats’ intraparty divides and convince the growing number of Americans who seem ready to turn the page on the Trump era that he’s the guy to do it, he may be a formidable candidate in 2028.

Editor’s note: a version of this piece first appeared in UnHerd

1. He also recently earned endorsements from two Republican mayors in Georgia whom his Senate office has worked closely with, with one explaining, “There are times when a person exceeds the party.”