Two rallies, nearly 1,000 miles and two days apart, laid out the increasingly stark choice confronting midterm election voters and a looming moment of reckoning over the nation’s future course.
In Atlanta on Sunday, Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff delivered an acidic takedown of President Donald Trump; an economy that many voters think is failing them; and a war Trump started and has failed to resolve. Ossoff boiled the election down to a referendum on corruption, costs and failed global leadership.
“Under Donald Trump, it costs more than ever to stock your fridge, to power your home, to make a cup of coffee, to buy school supplies for your kid or a tractor for your farm,” the Democrat said. He accused the president of sleeping through meetings and lying about the war, and said that while sailors on the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier are doing their nation proud during a deployment of over 250 days, Trump spends his time playing golf and buying stocks.
On Friday, in Long Island, Trump gave the most explicit version yet of an argument Republicans hope will stave off the midterm curse that haunts incumbent presidents — even as their leader faces headwinds over his personal unpopularity, the Iran war and voter frustration over high prices.
He accused Democrats of wanting to turn America into a “communist country” and of declaring war on the police and the rule of law. “The communists want to turn America into a third-world country, into a hellhole of crime and filth,” the president said, seeking to exploit the successes of progressive Democrats.
The contrast encapsulates a bitter moment in American history as a deeply unpopular president attempts to dodge lame-duck status by branding Democrats as un-American extremists. But he’s facing opponents keyed into a classic change campaign as they attempt to saddle Republicans with Trump’s failures and to tap into voters’ fury over the state of the nation.
Democrats have struggled for years to land disqualifying arguments against Trump. Their past warnings that US democracy was in peril often seemed rather esoteric to people struggling to afford gas and groceries. Ossoff is providing something that the party has lacked: abrasive, robust language and framing that can be borrowed by other candidates to weave Trump’s vulnerabilities into a positive case for their own campaigns.
This is one reason a senator with a strong record of winning in the conservative South and among Black voters — a critical Democratic constituency — is drawing talk of a possible 2028 run for president. First, however, he must try to win reelection.
Ossoff is also showing how Democrats can pin down their individual opponents by linking them to Trump’s record. He slammed his opponent, Rep. Mike Collins, whom Trump jammed onto the ballot despite the objections of state leaders. “Georgia deserves better — better than pro-war, pro-tariff, pro-cutting your healthcare Trump puppet Mike Collins, and America deserves better than Donald Trump,” Ossoff told his crowd.
Amid polls showing the Democratic senator in the lead, Collins told CNN’s Manu Raju in July that his foe was “lying, and the reason is he’s losing and he knows he’s losing.”