Quarter-zips for Ossoff

The last row of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s rally last Saturday included something you don’t usually see.

Unlike the usual progressive activists, wide-eyed college students, and local elected officials who tend to show up to Democratic events 10 months before an election, there stood, shoulder-to-shoulder, a bunch of middle-aged, white guys.

They wore quarter-zip sweaters and quilted vests, with a few work boots thrown in for good measure. They were from rural Georgia, intown Atlanta and the city’s northern suburbs. And they’re the voters Democrats like Ossoff need to have in order to win in Georgia in November. They powered Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock and GOP Gov. Brian Kemp to victory in 2022, and will be crucial for any statewide candidate looking to win in 2026.

Unlike days gone by, when a vulnerable Georgia Democrat might try to appeal to middle-of-the-road voters with a pledge to “work with the president when I agree with him, but not when I don’t,” Ossoff on Saturday in his aggressive speech just south of Atlanta offered no middle ground for the White House. If President Donald Trump is the runaway train, Ossoff pitched himself as the brakes.

The quarter-zips in the back were on board.

“You’re seeing what I’m seeing, right?” Ossoff called from the stage, a day after Trump’s social media post that included an animation of apes with Barack and Michelle Obama’s faces superimposed. “A president posting about the Obamas like a Klansman at 1 a.m.?”

When he described the FBI raid of the Fulton County Elections Hub as a colossal miscalculation on Trump’s part, sure to increase turnout in November, a voice from the back row offered up an “Amen!”

When Ossoff called the last 12 months with Trump back in office “a moral tailspin,” heads nodded in agreement. When he said the president’s cabinet was “the Epstein class” and the “elites they pretend to hate,” the vests and quarter-zips raised their “Ossoff for Senate” signs high.

Victor Fettes drove from Alpharetta with his wife to the Ossoff event. A retired executive, he described himself as an independent voter who used to vote Republican.

“But I’d say there’s no place in the Republican Party for me anymore,” he said.

“I feel like Republicans have kowtowed to Trump and have no moral courage,” Fettes said. “They will not stand up for what’s right, and I feel like Ossoff is willing to take a stand for working-class people, for the folks who need help.”

Charles Levinson works at a label factory in Union City. When I asked him about his impression of Trump after one year back in office, he said he could not think of anything positive to say.

“I just cannot stand what’s going on with this country, the corruption, the oppression, the ICE raids,” he said. “Sen. Ossoff has proven time and time again he wants to stop this trend and put the country on a better direction.”

For many of the men at the rally, their votes were as much about supporting Ossoff as actively voting against Trump. That’s a dynamic that could make it all the more difficult for the Republicans battling to take on Ossoff in November.

While Ossoff speaks out against Trump’s policies early and often, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter and Derek Dooley are locked in a battle to win the president’s approval and endorsement. Every day, their trip back to the middle to recapture moderate voters in November looks further and further away.

David Worley, a former chair of the Georgia Democratic Party, said he thinks his neighbors in Fayette County will “absolutely” vote for Ossoff, if only to send a message to the White House. Of all of the events in the past year, the killing of two American citizens in Minnesota seems to have been the tipping point, he said.

“Shooting Americans in the back on the streets of American cities is very upsetting to everyone, regardless of their political affiliations.”