Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) sought to rally his base on Monday evening in response to reports that President Donald Trump will state that Georgia’s two senators are illegitimate due to claims that fraud corrupted the state’s 2020 election.
Ossoff is running for reelection and will face Republican nominee Mike Collins in November. In a post to X, Ossoff predicted Trump’s “bizarre new lies to deny his 2020 defeat and attack voting rights” in Georgia would spell bad news for his GOP rival. The Democrat used the reported development to fundraise by leaning into fears that Trump will seek to reverse the election there, as he called on “concerned citizens nationwide to join me and support our voter protection efforts in Georgia.”
“Donald Trump’s spiral continues,” Ossoff said. “The failed president, pocketing billions as he drives up prices, is afraid to lose the midterms.”
“This is a disaster for Trump puppet Mike Collins,” the incumbent continued. “Already mired in scandal, Mike will now have to double down on conspiracy theories toxic in the General Election. From the start, Trump’s obsession with Georgia elections revealed his fury that Black voters were instrumental to his defeat.”
Georgia has typically voted Republican in presidential and Senate elections in recent decades. Ossoff and another Democrat, Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA), both won runoff elections in 2021 after the November 2020 races were too close to call, flipping the state’s two U.S. Senate seats blue.
Trump won Georgia in the 2016 and 2024 presidential elections, but narrowly lost it in 2020. Trump has expressed concern for years that the 2020 elections in Georgia were manipulated. In a post on Truth Social on Monday, Trump said he will be “making a Speech to the Nation” on Thursday evening, which some outlets reported could reignite election fraud claims. The Washington Reporter later walked back that claim, stating, “The White House tells us President Trump’s speech will not focus on Georgia’s 2020 elections.”
The FBI and the Justice Department are investigating claims of election interference in the 2020 election in Georgia. The FBI executed a search warrant at the Fulton County election facility in late February, seizing ballots and election records related to the election, a move later upheld in court.
However, the Trump administration faced a blow earlier this month, when a judge ruled it could not obtain identifying information about individuals who helped administer the 2020 election in Fulton County.
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Ossoff’s move to frame Trump’s revived concerns as a bad omen for Republicans comes as polls indicate he holds a roughly 7-point lead over Collins headed into November.
“My hunch is the race will become much more competitive, but Collins has work to do convincing Republicans and independents that he and the president can make things more affordable for rank-and-file Georgians,” poll analyst Daron Shaw previously said.