Jon Ossoff Has Energized Democrats—But Can He Reinvent Politics?

Georgia’s historically Republican Sixth district is full of leafy, quiet neighborhoods that are mostly white, with smatterings of immigrant families like mine. I recently returned there to interview Democratic congressional candidate Jon Ossoff, who faces a runoff against Karen Handel in June. The national attention Ossoff has gotten is significant, but for me it’s also a bit surreal—I went to high school with him. The Paideia School, where we went, was sort of the flower child of Atlanta’s private schools, and posed a stark contrast to our conservative, suburban surroundings. So to see the place where I grew up slowly inching its way from red to blue and embracing a candidate like Ossoff has been no small thing.