ATLANTA (AP) – As a teenager, John Ossoff was inspired by the role he played in the fight for racial equality when the civil rights symbol was in the early 20s.
He was in awe of Lewis’s life, he told The Associated Press in December, particularly how someone “so young” had acquired such a prominent position as chairman of the Student Nonviolent Coordination Committee.
At 33, the Millennium Democratic Party will hold its own leadership doctrine after being one of two candidates to help Georgia win the crucial US Senate runoff elections, a victory that would seal the Democrats’ control room . Ossoff defeated Republican David Perdue in the runoff to be held on Tuesday, nor did he get 50% of the vote in November.
This is Ospho’s first election to public office, and he will be the youngest member of the Senate. But he never let youth and inexperience become a hindrance to his aspirations.
In 2017, at the age of 29, he ran for Congress in Georgia, a race seen as an early referendum on President Donald Trump.
Although they lost, they broke fundraising records and once competed in the Republican District Competitive. For his Senate campaign, he adopted a sharper approach. His platform was unconditionally generous, a $ 15 minimum wage, a “public option” government health plan, and a new voting rights act to restore federal oversight of state election laws.
He also launched a fierce attack on Perdue, dismissing his opponent’s exaggerated claim that he was adopting a “radical socialist agenda”. In a debate in October, he called the 71-year-old former corporate executive “a rogue” who used the COVID-19 epidemic to protect his stock portfolio while reducing the severity of the virus. Perdue called the allegations false.
Ossoff is smart, “good-hearted” and will work to become a good senator, said Sarah Riggs Amico, a fellow Democrat who ran for lieutenant governor in Georgia in 2018 and challenged Ossoff in the Senate primary.
“The reality is that government functioning is better when there are people from different types of backgrounds who come to the background,” she said.
28-year-old voter Katilyn Poborski said she chose Ossoff because she is looking for change and is a senator who is passionate about addressing coronaviruses and climate change. He was not worried about his age.
“I think we need young people,” she said outside a polling place in downtown Atlanta on Tuesday. “Those who are in office are very old.”
Ossoff said his first race taught him to campaign at the grassroots level and “paint by numbers, ignoring the diversity of the garden that the GOP throws at me.”
“I don’t pay any attention to it, and I can’t really care what they say,” he told AP last month. His campaign declined an interview request on Wednesday.
Born into a wealthy family in Atlanta, Ossoff was 16 years old when he read Lewis’s memoir about the civil rights movement, “Walking with the Wind”. He wrote a letter to Lewis, and Lewis offered him a summer job.
Lewis referred Atlanta Congressional Attorney Hank Johnson to Congress in 2006. Osoff, a graduate of Georgetown University, became the fourth member of Johnson’s campaign staff. Lewis will remain a mentor.
Ossoff served on Johnson’s Washington staff for five years. In 2013, Ossoff inherited money from his late grandfather, after which he invested in a small London film production company. Insight TWI finances investigative documentaries and sells them to broadcasters including the BBC. Ossoff is the CEO of the company.
In a victory speech early Wednesday, Ossoff said he would follow the example set by Lewis. The Georgia Democrat died last year after serving in Congress for more than three decades.
“This campaign is about health and jobs and justice for all the people of the state,” he said. “And those will be my guiding principles because I am serving this state in the US Senate.”
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Journalist Halelua Hydero of the Associated Press contributed to this report.
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