The two matchups

Jon Ossoff is running for re-election in Georgia as the November 3 midterms approach, after serving his first term in the US Senate, and has long been in President Donald Trump’s sights. He is the only Democrat in the chamber seeking re-election in a state Trump won in 2024. In Michigan, Abdul El-Sayed is running for the seat vacated by outgoing Democratic Senator Gary Peters. Both are critical to the Democratic goal of attempting to wrest control of the Senate in the November elections.

• •Ossoff’s Republican opponent is Mike Collins, who currently holds a seat in the US House of Representatives.
• •El-Sayed is taking on Mike Rogers, a former FBI agent, veteran and staunch Trump ally.

Although Michigan regularly sends Democrats to the US Senate, that race is considered a tossup.

Attacks from Trump, the White House and Cruz

Trump mocked the Georgia senator as “Senator Os(jerk!)off” in a Truth Social post. Months later, Ossoff, accusing the president of not wanting to “do the job”, quipped that Trump wants to “build his ballroom and travel with Natalie on their apparently defenseless flying palace” - a jab at the president’s zealous aide Natalie Harp. White House communications staff responded in kind, labeling Ossoff a “lightweight”, “Jon Jackoff” and “the biggest cuck loser”, among other epithets.

At the Republican midterm convention in Texas, Senator Ted Cruz accused El-Sayed, whose parents are Egyptian immigrants, of seeking to implement Sharia law. Hecklers in the crowd roared back that he should be shot, sparking headlines in the US press. In an interview on a conservative radio show, Cruz warned of a “green-red alliance of Marxists and Islamists” that he said is “taking over” the Democratic party.

A moderate and a progressive

The two Democrats present contrasting profiles in these races.

• •Ossoff, 37, is the country’s youngest serving senator - feisty, media savvy and with choirboy looks. He is ahead in the polls, viewed as a rising Democratic star and a potential “hot presidential possibility” for the 2028 White House race. Within the party, he is seen as a moderate Democrat capable of appealing to a broad base of voters in one of America’s right-leaning southern states.
• •El-Sayed, 41, is a physician and public health expert who has never held elected office. He is considered a left-wing politician, part of a wave of progressive Democrats focused on affordability and state services.
• •His position on the Israeli-Palestinian crisis often overshadows his economic justice messaging and grabs global headlines. He narrowly won the party’s nomination in August after a nasty primary against his pro-Israel rival Haley Stevens that exposed deep divides within the party.
• •He campaigns in a state home to cities with major Muslim communities such as Dearborn, “the capital of Arab America”.

Socialism, the DSA and the analysts’ reading

Matt Duss of the Center for International Policy, a former foreign policy adviser to Senator Bernie Sanders, said both states matter to Democrats, Georgia perhaps more than Michigan.

Duss contrasted the pair: El-Sayed, an Arab Muslim, takes a much more progressive populist approach, while Ossoff has been a leader on anti-corruption, a major issue in American politics.

Polling on socialism points in conflicting directions. Within barely two weeks, a Gallup poll found that socialism is more popular than ever, with 43 percent of Americans holding a positive view. The New York Times cited another poll showing that roughly half of US voters view socialism unfavourably. For many Democratic strategists, a “Socialist” label is not a problem in a primary race, but broadening such a candidate’s appeal in a general election could remain a challenge.

The Democratic Socialists of America, founded in 1982, spent decades in obscurity before the 2016 presidential primary catapulted Bernie Sanders to national prominence ahead of his defeat by Hillary Clinton. Sanders calls himself a democratic socialist but is not formally affiliated with the group. In 2018, member Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won the New York primary and went on to win a House of Representatives seat; in late 2025 came the election of Zohran Mamdani as New York City mayor.

The DSA is a movement that aims to promote progressive issues rather than a political party, which can complicate messaging for Democrats on the campaign trail.

That tension has surfaced in Florida, where Democratic Senate nominee Angie Nixon said in a CBS interview that “this is not about three letters”, amid Republican criticism of her DSA membership. Nixon, an African-American self-described “former single mama”, was one of the surprises of the 2026 Democratic primaries, overcoming a vast fundraising disadvantage to defeat former military officer and fellow Florida Democrat Alex Vindman.

El-Sayed himself is not a DSA member. Duss said he describes himself as a capitalist who understands capitalism, yet argues for many DSA positions, with a formation behind him that includes the DSA.

Richard Johnson, a US politics and policy expert at Queen Mary University of London, said that in some ways the differences between the two are more of tone and manner and style rather than of policy. He noted that what people call a moderate Democrat today is not what people called a moderate Democrat 20 or 30 years ago, because the whole party has moved consistently left.

Foreign policy is unusually prominent in the 2026 midterm race, largely because Trump’s Iran war has seen an overlap of domestic and international issues. Duss said the Iran war is raising gas prices and impacting the global economy and the US economy, feeding a sense among Democrat, Republican and Independent voters that America wastes time, resources and energy on wars, particularly in the Middle East.

For now, the Georgia Senate race has Ossoff ahead in the polls, while the Michigan contest is considered a tossup - both to be decided when voters cast their ballots in the November 3 midterm elections.