National Public Radio congressional reporter Sam Gringlas wrote about Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-Ga.), one of the elitist media’s political heroes in Thursday's “How Jon Ossoff figured out a formula to excite Democrats.” The "journalistic" joy was unconfined after Ossoff's casual smear of Trump aide Natalie Harp at a rally, and this story attempts to extend that feeling through the midterms.
On paper, Senator Jon Ossoff of Georgia should be among the most vulnerable incumbents this year. He is the only Senate Democrat defending a seat in a state President Trump won in 2024.
But the race has not turned into the nail-biter most anticipated, and Democrats outside Georgia are taking notice – at a time when the party is debating how to escape the political wilderness and win back a majority in Congress.
A big hint that Gringlas approved of Ossoff: He forwarded comparisons to the anointed one, Barack Obama:
"He reminds me of Obama, honestly," says 28-year-old Courtney Rogers, who came of age as the Obama years gave way to Trump. In Ossoff, the first millennial senator, Rogers sees traces of an earlier era.
Rogers was waiting to buy an Ossoff T-shirt at an Atlanta rally this month. Nearby Rebecca Bruno and Beth Louise arrived already wearing theirs.
Gringas also put the story on air on All Things Considered. He simply piled on the praises from unlabeled liberal commentators, and reduced his smear of Harp to one of "his blistering takedowns of Trump."
Screenshot from NPR.org"He doesn't want to do the job," Ossoff said. "He wants to build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace gifted by the emir of Qatar."
That brief mention of Trump aide Natalie Harp ricocheted around the internet for days, prompting Trump to respond, calling Ossoff "Pee-wee Herman."
MS NOW host Chris Hayes, author of The Siren's Call: How Attention Became the World's Most Endangered Resource, says lines like this, filmed from multiple angles and clipped for social media, exemplify how Ossoff has managed to remain substantive and break through a crowded media environment that tends to reward the outrageous.
Ossoff isn't smearing a woman. He's just a canny and shrewd political player, Gringas reminded us at every turn.
Hayes says it helps that at 39, Ossoff is one of a few people in American politics whose political career was fully born after the rise of Trump, a master of the attention economy. "That probably makes you better equipped to operate in this environment than those thinking about how it used to be," he says.
After praising Ossoff’s constituent service, Gringas took time to bash his Republican opponent, Rep. Mike Collins with guilt by association.
To be sure, some of Ossoff's strength with independents may be more about voters' discomfort with his Republican opponent, Congressman Mike Collins, who falsely insists Trump won the 2020 election in Georgia and has not disavowed his son-in-law's social media posts containing white nationalist content and antisemitic conspiracy theories.
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On a historic square in Savannah, with live oaks cloaked in Spanish moss, Aaron Whitley, the Chatham County Democratic Party chair, says Ossoff has managed to transcend those fissures better than most.
"I don't think you can put a label on him because he doesn't fit into a box," Whitley says.
But don’t call him a political chameleon. Ossoff shines from every angle it seems:
Whitley says it is not that Ossoff takes positions based on political expediency. What he means is that Ossoff is not rigid. That has allowed Democrats of varying views to see themselves reflected in him.
The gush was never-ending.
At a pizza shop where the two used to grab a booth and the steak sandwich, Johnson says he looks forward to sharing a meal here again, joking that may require Ossoff donning a disguise.
"Knowing Jon, he's going to be glad to recede into the background after he wins this seat," Johnson says.
Though that could become less likely the more Ossoff's star continues to rise.
While working at NPR member station WABE in Atlanta, Gringlas also gushed over controversial Democrat and Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis, who prosecuted Trump for trying to undermine the presidential election in Georgia.
Gringlas’s reporting is not nearly so copacetic when Republicans make political gains. In May 2026 he conjured up visions of Jim Crow II over moves by Louisiana Republicans to eliminate one of the state’s two majority-black districts in response to the Supreme Court declaring them unconstitutional, using talking heads to make his point.
