Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff won the Democratic primary for a US Senate seat, CNN projected Thursday, becoming a standard bearer for a party increasingly hopeful of taking the Republican Southern stronghold in 2020.
On Wednesday afternoon, Ossoff said that there were still hundreds of thousands of outstanding ballots, calling the state’s voting process an “embarrassment,” an “outrage” and an “affront to our constitutional principles.”
Ossoff said that while there is “blame to go around” among officials for their “comprehensive failure,” he was “particularly disgusted” that Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger “refused to take any personal responsibility for a debacle that was clear to anybody watching.”
But Democrats have become optimistic that they will compete in Georgia, spurred by the growth of the Atlanta suburbs and voter expansion efforts led by former state House minority leader and 2018 gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams.
Ossoff’s two closest challengers were Teresa Tomlinson, the former Columbus mayor, and Sarah Riggs Amico, the 2018 nominee for lieutenant governor and executive chair of a trucking company.