Jon Ossoff

Ossoff is running in the Democratic primary for the 2020 Georgia Senate election against Republican incumbent Senator David Perdue.

Ossoff will run in the Georgia US Senate Democratic Primary election to try to unseat Republican Senator David Perdue in the 2020 Georgia Senate election. Other candidates in the primary election include former Mayor Teresa Tomlinson of Columbus; and Sarah Riggs Amico, who was the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor in 2018. Ossoff was endorsed by John Lewis.

Ossoff worked as a national security staffer and aide to Rep. Hank Johnson for five years during which he drafted and managed legislative initiatives that passed the House and Senate. He had top-secret clearance for five months. In Johnson’s office, Ossoff investigated fraud by defense contractors and domestic surveillance by the National Security Agency and led Johnson’s efforts to stop redeployment of U.S. tactical nuclear weapons on the Korean Peninsula. He left Johnson’s office in 2012 to earn a Master’s degree at the London School of Economics.

Ossoff’s firm has produced internationally broadcast investigations of extrajudicial killings by security forces in South Africa,Kenya, Mexico, and Mozambique; atrocities committed by ISIL in northern Iraq; the theft of U.S.-funded humanitarian aid by foreign officials in Ghana and Zimbabwe; the West African Ebola outbreak ; money laundering in the Seychelles; allegations of bribery by British American Tobacco; child and sex trafficking; ; quack doctors who kill and mutilate women in Nigeria and Colombia; criminals who abduct and murder children to sell their body parts in Africa; and high-level corruption in international sports.

On February 23, 2018, Ossoff announced he would not seek the seat in the regular election in 2018; the seat was won by Democrat Lucy McBath in November 2018.

Ossoff was the Democratic Party nominee for Congress in the historically expensive 2017 special election in Georgia's 6th congressional district; he lost with 48.2% of the vote to Republican Karen Handel's 51.8%.

After learning that Tom Price of Georgia's 6th district had been appointed secretary of Health and Human Services, Ossoff announced his candidacy for this special election on January 5, 2017. Ossoff quickly emerged as the most viable Democratic candidate out of a large field of candidates. He was endorsed by prominent figures such as Congressmen Hank Johnson and John Lewis, and state House Democratic Leader Stacey Abrams. He also received public support from Vermont Senator and 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders. Ossoff raised over $8.3 million by early April of that year.

On April 18, 2017, no candidate received 50% of the vote in the blanket primary ("jungle primary"). Ossoff led with about 48.1% of the vote, Republican candidate Karen Handel received 19.8%, while the remainder of votes were scattered for 16 other candidates. Because no candidate secured an absolute majority, the top two vote-getters, Ossoff and Handel, competed in a runoff election on June 20, 2017. Ossoff won all but 1% of the Democratic vote, while the Republican vote was more heavily split. Republicans collectively won 51.2% of the overall vote.

Ossoff opposed both the March 2017 and May 2017 versions of the American Health Care Act, the House Republican bill that repeals and replaces the Affordable Care Act. Ossoff said that the May 2017 version was worse than the earlier one "because it does even less to protect those with preexisting conditions. And those are children and families here in Georgia who need to be able to get affordable health insurance despite a pre-existing condition."

On May 7, 2017, Ossoff's campaign confirmed that he and his longtime girlfriend Alisha Kramer, an Emory University medical student, are engaged.

On the June 20 runoff, Ossoff was defeated by Handel, 51.78% to 48.22%. According to Atlanta Magazine, "while his percentage of the total vote remained steady from April to now, Ossoff garnered 32,220 more votes in those three months, a 34 percent increase ... Ossoff and his allies might have scooped up nearly every Democrat vote there was to get—and it still wasn't enough to overcome the GOP's numerical advantage." The New York Times reported that Ossoff "produced probably the strongest Democratic turnout in an off-year election in at least a decade", "brought a surprising number of irregular young and nonwhite voters to the polls," and nearly doubled youth turnout in the Sixth District from the 2014 midterm election. However, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "surging Democratic turnout wasn't enough to overcome heavy GOP voting in a district where Republicans far outnumber Democrats." Following reports of the election results, Frank Bruni in an op-ed for The New York Times characterized the race as "demoralizing for Democrats". This was as close as a Democrat had come to winning this district since it assumed its current configuration as a northern suburban district in 1992; Democratic challengers had won more than 40 percent of the vote only twice before.

Since 2013, Ossoff has served as managing director and CEO of Insight TWI, a multi-Emmy award winning investigative television production company that produces investigations for news channels around the world.

Since 2013, he has been managing partner and CEO of Insight TWI, a small business based in the United Kingdom which produces investigations targeting corrupt officials and organized crime for international news organizations.

In 2009, Ossoff graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service with a Bachelor of Science degree. He attended classes taught by former secretary of state Madeleine Albright and former Israeli ambassador to the United States Michael Oren. Ossoff went on to earn his Master of Science degree from London School of Economics in 2013.

Founded in 1991, the company’s film and television productions have won the Emmy, BAFTA, Peabody, and Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Awards awards.

Thomas Jonathan Ossoff (born February 16, 1987) is an American politician, media executive, and investigative journalist.

Ossoff was born on February 16, 1987, in Atlanta, Georgia. He was raised in Northlake, an unincorporated community in Georgia's 6th congressional district. Ossoff attended the Paideia School, a small private school in Atlanta. While in high school, he interned for Georgia congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis.

According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ossoff "transformed what was expected to be a quiet battle for a long-safe Republican seat into a proxy fight over Trump, the health care overhaul and the partisan struggle for suburbia." When Ossoff entered the race, the Cook Partisan Voting Index rated Georgia's 6th congressional district at R+14; the district was not considered competitive, and had been represented in Congress by Republicans since 1978. Less than two months before Ossoff’s announcement, Republican Congressman Tom Price had been re-elected in a landslide with 62% of the vote.