Ossoff Walks Political Tightrope in Georgia as Shutdown Drags On

The day Senator Jon Ossoff won a tight runoff in 2021, cementing Democratic control of the Senate, his first pledge to Georgia voters was that he would protect their health care.

Now, a fight Democrats have undertaken to preserve a key piece of the Affordable Care Act is at the heart of a government shutdown stalemate that could shape Mr. Ossoff’s uphill fight for re-election next year.

For Mr. Ossoff, the most endangered Senate Democrat facing voters in 2026, the shutdown fight entering its third week carries both political opportunities and perils.

As the only Democratic senator running in a state that President Trump won in 2024, Mr. Ossoff risks alienating some voters by sticking with his party in refusing to vote to reopen the government until Mr. Trump and congressional Republicans come to the table to negotiate an extension of Obamacare subsidies that are slated to expire at the end of the year.

“My constituents don’t want health insurance premiums to double next year and they want the federal government to reopen,” Mr. Ossoff, 38, said in an interview. “There needs to be real leadership from the president. He needs to come out of hiding, come up to the Hill. There is a solution.”

But the shutdown fight is also a chance for Mr. Ossoff to rally core Democratic supporters behind him as he braces for a difficult campaign, at a time when many in his party are spoiling for a fight against Mr. Trump.

He is “being applauded for being strong, knowing that he’s in a potentially vulnerable situation,” said Lawrence Bell, former deputy chief of staff for Senator Raphael Warnock, Democrat of Georgia.

Over 1.5 million people in Georgia are on Obamacare plans and could face substantial cost increases if the subsidies lapse. In Republican-controlled districts, premiums could increase from $1,500 to over $2,000, according to estimates from KFF, a health policy research group.

Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican of Georgia, said she was “disgusted” by the risk of rising premiums. She is one of the few members of her party who has spoken out about the issue.

“Not a single Republican in leadership talked to us about this or has given us a plan to help Americans deal with their health insurance premiums DOUBLING!!!” she wrote in a post on social media.

A sharp rise in insurance premiums is something “Republicans really need to think about, because I do think politically it matters,” said Brian Robinson, a G.O.P. political consultant in Georgia and past adviser to former Gov. Nathan Deal, a Republican.

Mr. Ossoff’s political vulnerability and his moderate tendencies have made him a target for Republicans eyeing which Democrats might be persuaded to cut a deal to end the shutdown, though no serious talks have taken shape so far.

He also represents tens of thousands of federal employees who are facing furloughs or delayed paychecks during the shutdown, including those at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquartered in Atlanta.

But Mr. Trump has already alienated many federal workers with his efforts to dismantle the federal bureaucracy, and his threats of layoffs and denied paychecks since the shutdown began.

Many of them are now willing to suffer the pain of a prolonged shutdown if it means Mr. Ossoff taking a stand against the president, said Hillary Holley, executive director of the labor organization Care in Action.

“It’s not officially, you know, a labor strike,” said Ms. Holley, a lifelong Georgia resident, referring to federal workers who are furloughed. “But that’s the sentiment that I’m getting when I hear from folks who are federal workers saying, ‘Stand up and fight, because we’ve had enough.’”

The “riskier thing,” Ms. Holley added, would be for Democrats like Mr. Ossoff to not continue fighting.

“Voters want us to do something about it,” said Representative Hank Johnson, Democrat of Georgia, referring to the expiring Obamacare subsidies. “They don’t want us to just stand by and let it happen.”

But keeping up that fight could cost Mr. Ossoff among voters who support the president and are turned off by the idea that the Democratic senator is standing with party leaders, including Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the minority leader, in blocking a measure to reopen the government.

“The Republican and White House argument that the Democrats caused the shutdown is a simple one compared to the complicated health care argument about subsidies” that will affect some but not all of the senator’s constituents, said Heath Garrett, a G.O.P. strategist in Georgia who was chief of staff to former Senator Johnny Isakson, a Republican.

Three Republicans have jumped into the primary race to challenge Mr. Ossoff next year. And they are eager to attack him for voting to shut down the government.

“We can discuss health care after they end the Schumer shutdown,” Representative Buddy Carter of Georgia, one of the challengers, said in a statement. He also accused Mr. Ossoff of “marching in lockstep” with the “radical left” of his party.

In the Senate, Mr. Ossoff is seen as a centrist. He has broken with his party at times during his first term, including to vote in January for the Laken Riley Act, an immigration enforcement law named after the Georgia nursing student who was attacked and killed by an immigrant who had entered the country illegally.

If he were to play a role in a deal to end the shutdown, it would give him a bipartisan selling point for his candidacy.

But he could face a backlash from the Democratic base if he were to join a handful of defectors in voting to end the shutdown. Republicans, who hold a 53-to-47 majority in the Senate, need eight Democrats to vote to pass a short-term funding bill, since one of their own members, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, is opposed. Three Democratic-aligned senators have broken ranks so far, leaving the G.O.P. five short.

Charles S. Bullock III, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said that such a deal would not be likely to sway voters who are fiercely loyal to the president, but that it could help Mr. Ossoff win over some independent voters.

“It’s a calculated risk,” Mr. Bullock said. “But I think it’s reasonable to take this position.”

But undecided voters will only matter if Democrats turn out across Georgia to vote for their incumbent, and some strategists say Mr. Ossoff’s more pressing imperative is to focus on the base of the party that is clamoring for their representatives in Congress to defy Mr. Trump.

“He can’t paralyze himself worried about what this sliver of the electorate might think,” said Mr. Bell.

Robert Jimison contributed reporting.