Dem
47
GOP
53
The 2026 race the Democrats are most worried about is Georgia, where Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) is up for reelection. Unlike in 2020, when now-Sen. Raphael Warnock (D-GA) was also on the ballot—which brought many Black voters to the polls—Ossoff might have to do this on his own this time. Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) is running for governor and could pull Black voters to the polls, but she has suspended her campaign to take care of her husband, who had a setback after his cancer surgery. If term-limited Gov. Brian Kemp (R-GA) jumps in, Ossoff could have a serious problem. But Kemp, like Gov. Andy Beshear (D-KY) and Roy Cooper, has presidential ambitions, so he might not run for the Senate.
All that said, Ossoff is good at raising money. He just announced that he pulled in $11 million in Q1 2025. That is an all-time record for a Senate reelection campaign in the first quarter of an off-year. It won't be anywhere close to enough. The race will probably cost hundreds of millions of dollars. But breaking an all-time record is a very good start.
The average donation was $32, coming from 260,000 donors, with over 155,000 being first-time donors. The money came from 156 of the state's 159 counties. Once the race starts in earnest, money will pour in from Democrats all over the country. One thing the Q1 haul could do though is scare off challengers from both parties. The only Georgians who could raise the kind of money Ossoff will raise are Kemp and Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA). However, she is surely not going to jump in unless Kemp makes it clear that he is out, and even then she might know she is toxic to many voters. She is inflammatory, but she seems to have a good ear for what Republican voters like to hear. (V)