Andrew Kerr writes for the Washington Free Beacon about a Georgia Democrat’s actions failing to match his rhetoric condemning the rich.
To Sen. Jon Ossoff (D., Ga.), the billionaires are to blame for driving the culture of corruption in American politics, and he has appointed himself as the man to put a stop to it. He could start by taking a look at his own campaign, which has accepted nearly $400,000 in campaign contributions from billionaires so far this election cycle.
Ossoff, a liberal who is widely considered the most endangered Democratic incumbent senator heading into November, has garnered presidential buzz—and a national profile—with his fierce denunciations of billionaires, the Trump family, and “the Epstein class.” But his self-styled “grassroots campaign” for a second full term has accepted contributions from 39 billionaires since the start of 2025, according to Forbes and Federal Election Commission records.
Ossoff’s roster of prominent billionaire benefactors, none of whom appears to be from Georgia, includes progressive megadonor George Soros and his son, Alex Soros, as well as Jeffrey Epstein associate and LinkedIn cofounder Reid Hoffman, hotel heir and Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker (D.) and his sister, Harvard Corporation senior fellow and former Obama secretary of commerce Penny Pritzker, and Microsoft divorcée Melinda French Gates, contributions that, according to Ossoff’s own logic, could make him beholden to their interests ahead of his own constituents.
“We have to be about change and reform, and money in politics is, like, the root of all of this,” Ossoff said on Pod Save America in September. “We have to focus on that. … The vast sums of corporate and billionaire money in our political system, with or without Trump, are why ordinary people are so ill-served by elected officials and by Congress.”
Ossoff’s reliance on billionaires to fund his campaign could open him up to charges of hypocrisy as he has made anti-corruption measures the signature theme of his reelection bid.
