ATLANTA — Sen. Jon Ossoff ruled out a 2028 presidential run on Tuesday night, then spent much of his last debate with Rep. Mike Collins pressing him on President Donald Trump’s tariffs and on what Ossoff called Collins’s ties to white nationalism, on the day early voting began in Georgia.
“I have zero interest in running for president,” Ossoff said when a moderator asked him directly, adding that he is “running for re-election to the Senate” and would serve a full six-year term. The answer carries weight because a presidential win would have meant leaving the seat. It was the second and final debate, part of the Atlanta Press Club’s Loudermilk-Young series.
Ossoff is the only Senate Democrat on the ballot in a state Trump won in 2024. Georgia is also one of the states where, in the Civiqs tracking Eastern Herald reported in September, Trump’s approval collapse had the president at minus 21.
The sharpest exchange was personal. Ossoff asked Collins whether he considers himself a white nationalist. Collins said he condemns hate speech and called antisemitism and hate of any kind “abhorrent,” NBC News reported. “I’ve fired people when things happen,” he said, according to CBS News Atlanta. Ossoff cited what he called “widely documented and completely disqualifying ties to white nationalism” and said Collins should release communications between his former chief of staff, Kip Talley, and a group that included Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer.
Collins went after Ossoff’s backers. He called him “your DSA candidate,” a reference to the Democratic Socialists of America, and raised donor Reid Hoffman, whose name appears in the Epstein files. Hoffman has said he “only knew Jeffrey Epstein because of a fundraising relationship with MIT,” per the CBS report. Ossoff accused Collins of voting in 2025 to cover up Epstein records; Collins said he voted to release the files and that “the call’s coming from inside the house.”
Asked whether Joe Biden won the 2020 election, Collins said, “Joe Biden went into office, and boy, Georgians paid for it.” Later he said, “Yes, Joe Biden was the president,” CBS News Atlanta reported. He was also asked about the recorded call in which Trump urged Georgia’s secretary of state to “find 11,780 votes.”
After the first debate last week, CBS News Atlanta reported polls from InsiderAdvantage, Big Data Poll and YouGov showing Ossoff ahead by 8, 10 and 10 points, and ratings of “likely Democrat” from the Cook Political Report and the University of Virginia’s Center for Politics. Trump is due to rally with Collins on Friday at Dalton Municipal Airport.
Collins has not, in either account, agreed to release Talley’s messages.
