One of U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s defining political moments came in 2017, when he rushed to Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport to protest a Donald Trump-backed travel ban.

Nearly a decade later, the world’s busiest airport is again a political battleground — and Ossoff is the one under fire from Republicans.

As a partial government shutdown snarls air travel nationwide, Republicans have seized on the chaos at Atlanta’s airport to target the first-term Democrat, casting him as a central figure in a crisis that has left passengers in hourslong bottlenecks facing understaffed checkpoints.

Democrats point the finger right back at Republicans, noting GOP senators blocked eight Senate votes to pay Transportation Security Administration workers amid a stalemate driven by sharp divisions over federal immigration policy.

That clash is spilling into the 2026 race. Ossoff, arguably the nation’s most vulnerable Democrat incumbent in 2026, has seen the race tilt in his favor as a fractured GOP field battles for Trump’s blessing and the base’s support. Now Republicans are trying to capitalize on the turmoil.

His top GOP rivals in Georgia’s high-stakes Senate race are turning the airport into a campaign stage. On Tuesday, U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter credited Trump’s deployment of federal immigration agents with easing the chaos as he rushed to his flight to Washington.

“My hope was that we would have some relief now that the ICE agents are here, and thank goodness they are,” he said in an interview near baggage claim on the way to the security check-in.

And U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley, two other Republican contenders, both made weekend visits to the airport’s clogged terminals, blaming Ossoff and his allies for the chaos.

“We need a senator who will stand with us, not someone who causes things like this,” Collins said, nodding to the masses behind him at Hartsfield-Jackson. Dooley widened the critique, casting the meltdown as a symptom of Washington dysfunction.

“Listen, where’s the rest of Congress? Why don’t we go get in a room and figure it out?”

Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff speaks to supporters during a rally after he filed paperwork earlier this month to run for reelection. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Ossoff has countered just as forcefully, blaming the president and his Republican allies for blocking funding that would keep the Transportation Security Administration running smoothly.

“Republicans have now blocked TSA funding seven times in three weeks,” Ossoff said. “Donald Trump’s obstruction is denying TSA workers pay and creating havoc at airports.”

The standoff has exposed a broader impasse in Washington. Congress has funded most of the government following a standoff last fall over health insurance subsidies. The one exception is the Department of Homeland Security, which includes U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Democrats are blocking the department’s funding because they are trying to force the Trump administration to curb its aggressive enforcement of immigration policies that have sometimes ended in violence. But the move also cuts off funding for other agencies like the Transportation Security Administration.

Democrats have offered to pass funding for TSA and other agencies except ICE. But Republicans so far have rejected that idea after Trump said he would not “make any deal with the Crazy, Country Destroying, Radical Left Democrats.”

That deadlock has left the Department of Homeland Security partially shuttered for weeks, even as TSA agents continue working without pay and staffing shortages ripple through airports around the nation. A growing number of officers are calling out sick amid the standoff.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents monitor sidewalk activity at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport on Monday. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

Still, ICE remains operational using funding approved last year by Congress. And Trump deployed agents to Atlanta and about a dozen other busy airports to ease the logjams over the objection of Democrats.

There are faint signals of a potential off-ramp. Some Republicans, including U.S. Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, have expressed openness to temporarily funding TSA and other non-immigration functions while continuing the fight over border enforcement separately.

Georgia’s other Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, has pushed a similar approach as Ossoff, urging colleagues to fund TSA immediately while negotiating immigration policy on a different track.

“We ought to fund TSA now,” Warnock told reporters. “But I don’t know why the Republicans insist on holding federal workers hostage, holding TSA workers hostage, so that they can have an unaccountable paramilitary force on our streets.”

The White House has moved to blunt the impact. Officials say the ICE agents in Atlanta are assigned with tasks like monitoring exits so TSA officers can focus on screening passengers. Trump has also floated sending the National Guard if delays persist.

But that decision has opened a new line of political attack, with Democrats arguing it highlights how far the situation has spiraled and Republicans calling it a necessary safety measure.

Republican candidates for the U.S. Senate in Georgia are (left to right): U.S. Rep. Buddy Carter, U.S. Rep. Mike Collins and Derek Dooley. (AJC file photos)

Meanwhile, the battle over the narrative continues as travelers hunker down for unpredictable stays. On Monday morning, Atlanta airport security lines stretched for hours, spilling outside checkpoints and into baggage claim areas. By the afternoon, wait times had eased.

Outside the terminals, conservative groups are amplifying the GOP message. The National Republican Senatorial Committee launched a digital ad styled as an airport loudspeaker announcement warning travelers to brace for long delays “thanks to Jon Ossoff.”

Americans for Prosperity Georgia dispatched mobile billboards plastered with Ossoff’s face that accuse him of “playing politics with TSA and our security.”

Democrats are pushing back with their own message under the Gold Dome and at events across the state.

“The crisis in our airports right now is manufactured,” said Democratic U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams. “And we could end it right now if Republicans would come to the table and do their jobs.”

Any resolution hinges on Trump, who has shown little appetite for compromise. The president has tied any deal to a sweeping election overhaul that Democrats staunchly oppose, raising the possibility the disruptions will drag on.

For travelers, the standoff is already exacting a devastating toll. Ben Amerson, a Forsyth-based travel agent who organizes large group trips, said the shutdown has forced him to adjust itineraries.

“When politicians play games,” he said, “they don’t realize that the games they play are affecting the everyday citizen.”

Staff writers Zach Hansen and Savannah Sicurella contributed to this report.