Jon Ossoff, the Democratic Party wunderkind who lost a 2017 special election in Georgia despite raising a record-breaking $30 million, announced Monday that his Senate campaign raised more than $1 million in the fourth quarter of 2019.
Ossoff, 32, is trying to establish himself as the frontrunner in a Democratic primary that features three other candidates vying to challenge incumbent senator David Perdue (R., Ga.) in 2020. The doe-eyed failure raised more than $800,000 in the first three weeks after launching his campaign in September but remains a long shot to win the statewide election.
The goods news for Ossoff is that he will actually be able to vote for himself this year. The candidate could not do so in 2017 because he did not live in Georgia's Sixth Congressional District. Ossoff was then running in a special election for the seat vacated by Rep. Tom Price, who briefly served in the Trump administration as secretary of Health and Human Services. Ossoff eventually lost to former representative Karen Handel by 9,000 votes.
Ossoff was one of the first candidates to benefit from the national Democratic Party establishment's unusual obsession with young (and woefully inexperienced) white male politicians who can't win statewide elections. Following Ossoff's defeat in 2017, Beto O'Rourke exploited a failed, celebrity-backed Senate campaign in Texas to launch a presidential campaign that also failed.
It is fair to say that after losing his Senate race in 2020, Ossoff will be well-positioned to win the Democratic nomination in 2024, when President Trump will be seeking a historic third term in office.