Jon Ossoff posts record $14M haul in high-stakes Georgia Senate race
Democratic U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff shattered Georgia’s first-quarter fundraising record, raising more than $14 million over the first three months of the year and entering the spring with $31 million cash on hand in one of the nation’s most closely watched Senate races.
His haul breaks the first-quarter benchmark set by Democratic U.S. Sen. Raphael Warnock in Georgia in 2022 and further cements Ossoff’s financial edge against a fractured GOP field seven months before Election Day.
Ossoff’s campaign said the contributions came overwhelmingly from small-dollar donors as he frames the race as a grassroots fight against a flood of Republican outside spending.
More than 99% of contributions between January and March came from donors who have given less than $200, according to the campaign. Nearly 98% of the donations were $100 or less, with an average contribution of $38.
The fundraising report lands as Republicans intensify their push in Georgia, where Ossoff is the only Senate Democratic incumbent on the 2026 ballot in a state that Donald Trump carried in the 2024 presidential election.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported last week that the Senate Leadership Fund’s $44 million reservation against Ossoff is the group’s largest investment ever in Georgia outside a runoff election. That’s on top of roughly $11 million already spent on TV and digital attack ads.
That means the race is already shaping up as one of the most expensive Senate contests in the nation, though no Republican in the race has reported anything close to Ossoff’s cash reserves.
The latest figures also offer a fresh reminder of why Republicans, despite Georgia’s rightward tilt in the 2024 presidential race, remain wary of underestimating Ossoff, who won a 2021 runoff that helped flip control of the Senate.
The incumbent has steadily built one of the largest war chests of any politician in the country, while Republicans continue to sort through a messy three-way primary between U.S. Reps. Buddy Carter and Mike Collins and former football coach Derek Dooley. Trump has yet to wade into the race, though each of the three GOP contenders has embraced him and his agenda.
At a Democratic gala over the weekend, Ossoff sharpened his argument that the election is a referendum on the president’s policies as he criticized “Donald Trump’s war” against Iran and warned of GOP efforts to undermine voting rights.
“They’ve made their plans very clear,” he said. “And Georgia Democrats are prepared to answer with a mobilization so massive, and a defense of voting rights so fierce, that no plot against the franchise can foil the will of the people.”
About the Author
Greg Bluestein is the Atlanta Journal Constitution's chief political reporter. He is also an author, TV analyst and co-host of the Politically Georgia podcast.
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