A victory built on a referendum

Democrat Jon Ossoff has won the Georgia Senate race results, securing re-election to the US Senate by defeating Republican challenger Mike Collins. The incumbent treated the contest as a referendum on the Trump administration, drawing attention to self-serving stock trades and business deals by the president and his orbit. He also pointed to how the war in Iran and Trump's trade policies were hitting Georgia voters' pocketbooks.

Along the way, Ossoff built a national profile:

• •He made headlines with a steady stream of viral speeches on conspicuously national issues.
• •He is regularly cited as a potential Democratic presidential contender in 2028.

Money and momentum

The money side of the Georgia election results told its own story. Ossoff raised at least $115.9m for the election cycle, outraising Collins by many multiples. That edge matched the surveys: Ossoff had never been behind Collins in the polls.

Collins' troubled campaign

Collins centred his campaign on immigration enforcement and anti-transgender policies, but it was badly marred by ties between campaign staff and white nationalists, neo-Nazis and far-right extremists.

According to CNN reporting, David Alan Scheer II - Collins' son-in-law and a colleague in the trucking business - had posted white supremacist and Nazi views online. Separately, the Republican's former chief of staff, Kip Talley, was among aides who had met with the white nationalists Nick Fuentes and Richard Spencer. Those two men had sought Collins' help for Charles C Johnson, a Holocaust denier and rightwing activist then jailed on contempt charges. Through debates and campaign advertising, Ossoff returned to these connections again and again.

Election night in Georgia

At a Democratic election night event in Georgia on Tuesday evening, Atlanta mayor Andre Dickens said: "As mayor, I talk to people every day who are struggling". People, he added, are tired and angry at Washington politicians "making decisions that benefit themselves, instead of the people that they serve".

For Dickens, the concerns at stake were everyday ones. His party, he said, cared "about whether you can afford your groceries; whether you can fill up your tank and make it to the weekend. That's not left or right. That's life."

Ossoff was re-elected after a contest in which he never trailed in the polls, with Collins defeated.