The Senate GOP’s prime exterior political operation is gearing as much as launch its first salvo of the midterms with a brand new advert focusing on Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia—kicking off what’s anticipated to be a relentless marketing campaign.
In line with Axios, the seven-figure advert blitz from One Nation, the difficulty advocacy arm of the Senate Management Fund tremendous PAC, will start airing Saturday. It would run throughout marquee sporting occasions just like the Remaining 4 males’s and ladies’s basketball video games, the Masters Event, and Atlanta Braves broadcasts.
True to type, Republicans are leaning on their usual drained anti-trans rhetoric.
“Man-to-man defense isn’t woke enough for Ossoff. He’s for they/them,” one advert sneers.
Although it’s nonetheless early within the midterm cycle, Republicans are clearly nervous about potential a blue wave (and for good motive), they usually’re pulling out all of the stops in hope of clinging to their slim Senate majority.
Theoretically, the 2026 midterms ought to favor Democrats—regardless of three Senate retirements, they’re poised to reclaim the Home. However the Senate map is trickier. Ossoff’s seat, specifically, is likely one of the hardest to defend, with the nonpartisan Cook dinner Political Report already calling it a “toss-up.”
Oddly, no Republican has but stepped ahead to run in opposition to Ossoff. Whereas a number of names are floating round, many inside the social gathering are holding out hope that Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp will enter the race. A supply aware of Kemp’s considering instructed Axios he’s “still considering it.”
Given the present political local weather, it’s a good query whether or not Kemp—who’s term-limited and might’t run for reelection in 2026—desires to threat his political future by leaping right into a cycle the place Republicans are virtually assured to flop. President Donald Trump is deeply unpopular, the GOP model isn’t faring significantly better, and there’s little motive to imagine that can quickly change.
Then once more, some members of the GOP with much less to lose may not be so hesitant. Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, one in all Trump’s loudest cheerleaders in Congress, has already left the door open to a possible Senate or gubernatorial run in 2026.
What’s maybe most revealing concerning the GOP’s early offensive in opposition to Ossoff is that, with no declared candidate and a celebration scrambling to defend Trump’s disastrous tariffs, Republicans don’t appear to have a lot to run on—apart from attacking transgender individuals. Although, that’s much less of a technique than it’s a confession: They’re betting voters might be extra outraged by tradition struggle nonsense than by insurance policies which are actively draining their wallets.
That’s a dangerous wager.
To be truthful, polls present a rightward shift on trans points amongst adults—together with some Democrats—and Axios means that this sentiment could possibly be extra pronounced in a red-leaning state like Georgia. One Nation even shared inside polling claiming that 79% of Georgia’s registered voters help banning “biological males” from girls’s sports activities.
However Ossoff isn’t taking the bait. The truth is, it seems to be like his reelection technique is already locked in: go on the offensive and hammer Trump at each flip.
“American parents don’t need federal bureaucrats confirming our children’s genitalia. Athletic associations and local school districts can ensure fair, safe competition in childhood athletics,” a spokesperson for Ossoff instructed Axios.
Different Democrats would do effectively to take observe. The lesson from 2024 isn’t that the social gathering ought to culturally drift rightward—it’s that it doesn’t have to. With actual ammunition on the economic system, well being care, and Social Safety, there’s no have to mimic GOP cruelty to be aggressive.
