U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff is tapping his formidable fundraising operation to transfer more than $3.6 million into the Democratic Party of Georgia’s coordinated campaign, an investment aimed not just at securing his own reelection but boosting Democrats up and down the ballot.
The spending, which the campaign disclosed for the first time Wednesday, was made over the past two years and offers some of the clearest evidence yet of how deeply Ossoff has invested in a state party operation that he helped overhaul ahead of the 2026 midterms.
He has also installed two longtime operatives in key roles. Kyle Tromley, a former Ossoff political director and veteran Democratic operative, was tapped in December to lead the coordinated campaign. Caroline Saudek, a six-year veteran of Ossoff’s fundraising operation, joined the state party in January to help raise money.
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
Credit: Miguel Martinez/AJC
The moves illustrate Ossoff’s attempt to not just win reelection against Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins but also burnish himself as an architect of the broader Democratic effort in Georgia.
He is trying to run up his margin against Collins, a staunch ally of President Donald Trump who embraces the “MAGA Mike” label, in hopes that a decisive victory could also help Keisha Lance Bottoms’ bid for governor and other Democrats down the ballot.
That strategy has crystallized as Collins struggles to consolidate support beyond the GOP base while Ossoff pushes to expand his coalition by courting independents and disenchanted Republicans.
But the $3.6 million push shows that Ossoff is also trying to translate his enormous financial edge into a more lasting infrastructure that can mobilize voters for Democrats.
They’ll face Republicans who have been working to rebuild their own grassroots network since Gov. Brian Kemp’s 2022 reelection.
Billionaire Rick Jackson has pumped some of his fortune into an infrastructure his campaign for governor calls a “concierge service” that targets persuadable voters. The Georgia GOP, meanwhile, is focusing increasingly on energizing core conservatives who may need a nudge to vote in an election where Trump isn’t on the ballot.
And Collins insists he’s still very much in the fight.
“I’ll make a pledge to you. I’m going to be your next U.S. senator,” he told a crowd of conservatives Monday at the Faith & Freedom Coalition’s annual gala. “You’re going to see a U.S. senator that’s going to stand up for the people of Georgia, stand up and represent our values.”
‘Don’t keep scrolling’
The Democratic coordinated campaign now has more than 100 field staffers and 30 offices around the state, many of them in regions with competitive downballot races. More than 50 campaigns are participating in the effort, according to party officials.
The operation organizes door-knocking canvasses and phone banks, trains volunteers and helps coordinate ballot access efforts. Party officials say organizers have knocked on tens of thousands of doors since early summer.
The state party is also separately expanding beyond marquee races. On Tuesday, Democrats launched “Project Downballot,” a new effort to target Republicans running for lieutenant governor, secretary of state and attorney general.
Ossoff’s approach has roots in his 2020 Senate campaign, where he assembled an organizing program that hired thousands of Georgians to mobilize their friends, relatives and other potential voters.
Now he is trying to apply that grassroots philosophy to the state party.
He helped orchestrate a shake-up of Democratic Party leadership after Trump’s 2024 victory that turned the party chair into a full-time, paid position and endorsed Charlie Bailey to lead the organization.
Bailey has since expanded the party’s research, fundraising and field operations — work that helped flip two Public Service Commission seats last year and a GOP-held state legislative seat.
Those results hardly guarantee similar success in November. Republicans still control every statewide constitutional office and both chambers of the Legislature. And recent Georgia history is littered with Democratic hopes of a breakthrough that fell flat.
But Ossoff has more at stake than perhaps any other Democrat in whether the party’s infrastructure rebuild works. He entered the cycle as one of the nation’s most endangered Senate Democrats, readying for what both parties once expected would be one of the country’s most competitive races.
Now he has become a marquee Democratic figure himself, drawing national attention and a wave of 2028 speculation.
And increasingly, he is using that spotlight to urge supporters to do more than stew over what happens in Atlanta or Washington.
“That ache in your heart or pit in your stomach,” he said. “Don’t ignore that, don’t keep scrolling — turn it into action.”
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