Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff cruises to re-election in Georgia

Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff has won re-election against Republican Rep. Mike Collins, NBC News projects, prevailing in Georgia after a nationally watched race that was defined, at times, by heated personal attacks.

Ossoff’s win is a major hold for Democrats in one of the most closely divided battleground states in the country — and one that both sides saw as critical for control of the Senate earlier this election cycle. Ossoff grabbed an early advantage in the race and held on, with a massive money advantage and a sizable lead in most public polling.

His dominant position in a state where both parties have won in recent years turned heads nationally, and clips of Ossoff’s campaign speeches began to catch on among national Democrats throughout 2026.

That prompted some talk of whether Ossoff could run for president in 2028, though the Democratic senator said during a debate that he would serve a full second term.

Much of the race, including two head-to-head debates, focused on the national political atmosphere, with Ossoff tying Collins to President Donald Trump and his low approval rating. Meanwhile, Collins would often try to pivot to votes Ossoff took under former Democratic President Joe Biden, who left office in January 2025.

The economy and the increasingly high price of consumer goods was also at the center of the Georgia Senate race. Ossoff repeatedly tried to get Collins to defend Trump’s tariff regime and the Iran war.

Collins would regularly attempt to brush off questions about Trump’s economy, including the tariffs, and instead try to blame Biden-era policies for high costs.

“That Bidenomics, that Green New Deal my opponent voted for, that’s where this inflation came from,” Collins said during their first Senate debate.

The race also was replete with attacks of a more personal nature.

Ossoff focused on a series of social media posts in which Collins’ son-in-law promoted white nationalist posts, as well as a former Collins staffer’s messages with avowed white supremacist Nick Fuentes.

“You’ve hired half the Third Reich,” Ossoff said during a debate last month.

Collins said he does not support any form of racism or white nationalism.

“I don’t care where the source is, and I tell him that,” Collins said of his son-in-law.

Collins also noted campaign contributions to a pro-Ossoff super PAC from Reid Hoffman, a billionaire whose name appeared in the Epstein files. Ossoff retorted that Collins had taken votes to block full release of the files.

As Trump’s approval ratings continued to drop, Republicans across the country started to try and distance themselves from the president, including rebranding their messaging or finding individual policies to start disagreeing with, most notably tariffs and the war in Iran, both of which are overwhelmingly unpopular.

Collins, however, was not one of them.

He defended the war in Iran, promoting the administration’s rationale that it’s needed because Iran can’t be allowed to have a nuclear weapon.

He said the tariffs were “fair” in the context of the state’s major ports and trade with China.

“Savannah Port and Brunswick Port have been on my mind,” Collins said in a debate last month.