With millions banked, Jon Ossoff’s general election campaign roars to life

Today’s newsletter highlights

• Test your knowledge with our weekly news quiz.
• Georgia Democrats probe Brian Kemp’s vulnerability.
• Marjorie Taylor Greene calls out U.S. healthcare costs in her new web series.

Fundraising juggernaut

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff shakes hands with a supporter after a joint campaign rally with Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms at the Tabernacle in Atlanta last month. (Arvin Temkar/AJC)

U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff’s general election machine is roaring to life.

The Democratic incumbent’s campaign said it raised more than $1 million in the 24 hours after U.S. Rep. Mike Collins clinched the Republican nomination, powered by roughly 27,000 online donors who gave an average of $38.

The haul is the latest sign of the financial juggernaut Ossoff has built around small-dollar fundraising. His campaign has socked away more than $32 million to battle for a second term.

It’s central to a campaign built for a Democratic base demanding a more confrontational posture in the Trump era. Between the arena-sized rallies, sharp-edged attacks and made-for-social-media videos, Ossoff is making clear he won’t run a cautious race.

That’s been on display even more since Collins bested Derek Dooley in Tuesday’s GOP runoff. Rather than cede the spotlight to his opponent, the senator immediately went on offense.

He blasted the Republican minutes after his victory as “a notorious bigot, antisemite, and extremist currently under federal investigation for the illegal misuse of tax dollars.”

And he released a two-minute video portraying Collins as a scandal-shadowed Trump loyalist who “rode his daddy’s name from business to Congress.”

Collins, meanwhile, trumpeted the emergence of a unified Republican ticket. He and billionaire Rick Jackson, the GOP nominee for governor, endorsed each other.

“Mike Collins and I will defeat Keisha Lance Bottoms and Jon Ossoff,” Jackson said. “Simple as that.”

Friday news quiz

Republican nominee for governor Rick Jackson speaks to his supporters at his runoff election night watch party on Tuesday. (Jason Getz/AJC)

Good morning! How closely did you follow the news this week? Find out by taking our quiz. You’ll find the answers at the end of this newsletter.

While President Donald Trump endorsed Lt. Gov. Burt Jones for governor, what person in Trump’s orbit raised eyebrows by praising Rick Jackson on the day before the runoff?

• A) Marco Rubio.
• B) JD Vance.
• C) Donald Trump Jr.
• D) Laura Loomer.

How did Democratic nominee for governor Keisha Lance Bottoms kick off her general election campaign the morning after Tuesday’s runoff races?

• A) Marching to the Georgia Capitol to protest a Republican redistricting plan.
• B) Greeting workers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as they entered the building.
• C) A big rally in Atlanta, where she was the city’s mayor for four years.
• D) A news conference in front of a shuttered hospital in Commerce.

Voters in what two Georgia cities elected their first Black mayors on Tuesday?

• A) Athens and Columbus.
• B) Gainesville and Augusta.
• C) Macon and Marietta.
• D) Tifton and Woodstock.

What conservative radio host endorsed U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff for reelection this week?

• A) Erick Erickson.
• B) Martha Zoller.
• C) Shelley Wynter.
• D) Neal Boortz.

Lame duck

Gov. Brian Kemp speaks before signing the state's new budget earlier this year in Atlanta. (Hyosub Shin/AJC)

Georgia Democrats sense Gov. Brian Kemp is vulnerable. Now, they’re pushing to see how far they can go.

Democrats moved to override one of Kemp’s vetoes on Thursday. The motion was not immediately batted down by the Republican majority. Instead, lawmakers agreed to defer the motion until Monday.

It’s been 18 years since the Georgia Legislature has overridden a governor’s veto. Doing so is not easy. It takes a two-thirds vote in both chambers, meaning it will take significant bipartisan support. And the governor has the power to make life difficult for lawmakers who cross him.

But times have changed. Kemp is a lame duck leaving office next year. The candidates he backed for governor and U.S. Senate lost Tuesday, as did John F. Kennedy, a close ally who was in the runoff for lieutenant governor.

And on Wednesday, House and Senate Republican leaders rejected his call to redraw the state’s political maps during this special session for the 2028 cycle.

“The governor doesn’t have, after Tuesday, I guess the best track record,” said state Rep. Alan Powell, R-Hartwell. “I don’t know what will happen on that.”

The bill, House Bill 1192, would place restrictions on how Kemp’s administration can spend money for the Department of Community Health and Department of Human Services. Kemp vetoed it because he said it “interjects the General Assembly into the operational oversight of executive branch agencies.”

“We don’t just have to take what the governor will sign,” said state Rep. Stacey Evans, D-Atlanta, who made the motion to override the veto. “We need to remember that our voters sent us here to work and to lead, not to simply follow.”

Medical tourist

Former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, seen here at a political rally in Rome in 2020. (Ben Gray for the AJC)

In the first episode of her new web series, former U.S. Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene spent $4,000 on an anti-aging treatment at a clinic in Mexico — evidence she says of the runaway healthcare costs in the U.S.

Greene says traveling internationally to seek out healthcare options is becoming more popular as Americans struggle with high coverage costs — with both parties to blame.

“I am extremely frustrated with Republicans for never truly fixing the problem caused by the Affordable Healthcare Act,” Greene told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution, citing House Speaker Mike Johnson’s pledge after the government shutdown in 2025 to address the issue.

“The cost of health insurance is one of the top issues to Americans, and is continuously, routinely ignored by both parties,” she said.

Greene says she chooses not to pay for health insurance. But the treatment — injecting millions of umbilical cord stem cells — wouldn’t be covered, anyway, as it hasn’t been approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Greene has continued to blast her former Republican colleagues since quitting Congress in January after a falling out with Trump.

Temporary reprieve

House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley, D-Columbus, is calling for a state constitutional amendment to ban partisan gerrymandering. (Miguel Martinez/AJC)

House Minority Leader Carolyn Hugley is pressing Speaker Jon Burns to turn his redistricting retreat into a vote on a proposed constitutional ban on partisan gerrymandering.

In a letter sent Thursday, Hugley wrote that Burns’ pledge of public input and careful review of new legislative boundaries “rings hollow” without that amendment.

It’s a symbolic move. It’s also a reminder that while Republicans have backed away from a summer map overhaul, Democrats are treating it as a temporary reprieve rather than a final victory.

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