Three Jews Win Legislature Seats, Ossoff Cruises

If unofficial results of the midterm elections hold, there will be three Jewish legislators when the Georgia General Assembly convenes in January.

Democratic state Rep. Esther Panitch, the lone Jewish legislator the past two terms, will be joined in the House by Democrat Adam Cleveland, while Democrat Kevin Abel takes a seat in the Senate.

Panitch and Cleveland will be members of the majority, as, based on unofficial results, Democrats flipped the lower chamber, while also narrowing their deficit in the Senate to just two seats.

Democrats swept every statewide race, topped by former Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms’ gubernatorial victory.

For more than two decades, Republicans held a trifecta under the Gold Dome, holding the governor’s office along with the House and Senate.

The most prominent Jewish candidate on the ballot, U.S. Sen. Jon Ossoff, handily won a second six-year term, an 18-percentage point victory in a race that several months ago was thought to be competitive.

Ossoff, a blistering critic of Republican President Donald Trump, received 59 percent of the vote to defeat Republican U.S. Rep. Mike Collins, an outspoken supporter of Trump.

On a night when Democrats took control of the U.S. Senate, the Georgia race was one of the first called by the Associated Press and television networks. Collins’ 41 percent was the weakest showing by a Republican in a regular U.S. Senate race in Georgia since 1984.

A beaming Ossoff stepped on stage in Atlanta to an enthusiastic welcome from a crowd of supporters.

“To the people of the great state of Georgia, for the trust you’ve invested in me, to continue representing you in the United States Senate, thank you, thank you, thank you,” he said, to which crowd began chanting Ossoff’s name.

“In sweeping and decisive victories, the American people have rebuked the depravity, the corruption, and incompetence of the failed, lame duck President Donald J. Trump,” Ossoff continued, as results also showed Democrats taking control of the U.S. House.

“Together we’ve affirmed that our task is not just to contain one president’s wickedness, but to heal the brokenness beneath. That this moment is an opening not for restoration, but for reformation,” Ossoff said.

In sweeping and decisive victories, the American people have rebuked the depravity, the corruption, and incompetence of the failed, lame duck President Donald J. Trump.

Despite a 90 percent record of supporting aid to Israel, five votes on Senate resolutions (all of which failed) that opposed the sale or export of specific U.S.-made weapons to Israel were controversial in some quarters of the Jewish community.

Collins’ campaign was mired in controversies that included a son-in-law spouting white nationalist beliefs, a former chief of staff fired for briefing white supremacists, and reported links between other campaign aides and white supremacists.

Despite the perhaps wishful thinking of many rank-and-file Democrats, the 39-year-old Ossoff has said that he has no interest in running for president in 2028.

Georgia law requires that county election boards certify results no later than 5 p.m.. on the Monday after the election (this year Nov. 9) and that the secretary of state certify state results by 17 days after the election (this Nov. 20).

Republicans entered the election with a 99-81 advantage in the House and appear to have exited with Democrats holding a 92-88 edge. In the Senate, the Republican’s 33-23 advantage in seats dropped to 29-27.

Georgia’s Jewish population in 2024 was an estimated 148,500, with 132,000 in Metro Atlanta, according to the American Jewish Year Book. The Jewish community makes up 1.31 percent of the state’s population, estimated in 2026 to be 11.4 million.

Panitch received 64.4 percent of the vote to defeat Republican Keith Gettmann in House District 51, repeating her 2024 win over Gettmann.

Panitch is a family law and criminal defense attorney, a member of Congregation B’nai Torah, a third-generation member of Hadassah, and co-chair of the legislature’s Georgia-Israel Caucus.

District 51 takes in north Fulton County, including parts of Roswell, Johns Creek, and Sandy Springs.

She posted on Facebook: “For four years, including through October 7th and everything since, I’ve been a caucus of one: the only Jewish member of the Georgia General Assembly. I’ve been so lucky to have friends and colleagues who stood with me, and I’m grateful to every one of them. But Georgia’s 150,000 Jews deserve more than one voice. By population, we should have three or four.

She congratulated Abel — “a proud, pro-Israel Democrat” — in her late Tuesday night post and updated that Wednesday morning by adding Cleveland.

Abel, an Internet technology consultant, and a member of Temple Sinai, received 62.7 percent of the vote in defeating Republican Mike Dvorscak in Senate District 14. The seat opened when Democratic Sen. Josh McLaurin opted, successfully, to run for lieutenant governor.

“I am thrilled to be joining Esther Panitch and now Adam Cleveland as a strong Jewish voice in the Georgia Capitol,” Abel said in a message to the AJT.

State Senate District 14 stretches north from the Atlanta city limits in a slice of Fulton County that takes in portions of Sandy Springs, Roswell, Alpharetta, and Johns Creek.

Cleveland, a member of The Temple, scored an upset in House District 48, winning 50.8 percent of the vote, to narrowly unseat two-term Republican incumbent Rep. Scott Hilton.

The race was one that the state Democratic Party had targeted as a chance to flip a House seat. District 48 takes in portions of northern Fulton and western Gwinnett counties, including parts of Johns Creek, Roswell, and Peachtree Corners.

“I’m grateful for the support of so many in our Jewish community as I made this bid to change our state, and the whole country, back to one that governs with kindness, respect for all people, and devotion to truth,” Cleveland said in a statement to the AJT. “I’m excited to join Kevin Abel and Esther Panitch as the Jewish members of our General Assembly in 2027 and I look forward to making legislative opportunities more accessible to Georgians of all stripes who want to pursue a cause, not a career.”

Cleveland, a lawyer with undergraduate and law school degrees from the University of Georgia, chairs the creditor’s rights section of the State Bar of Georgia.

In House District 25, Republican Rep. Todd Jones, whose mother is Jewish but his father was not, appeared to have won a sixth term, receiving 51.6 percent of the vote. Jones does not identify by religion but, he has told the AJT in the past, by the lessons he learned from the grandparents who helped raise him. District 25 includes parts of northern Fulton County and Forsyth County.

State House members represent an average of about 59,585 residents and state Senators an average 191,523 residents, based on 2020 Census data.

Georgia legislators receive a base salary of $25,312 and a $247 per day per diem during the 40-day legislative session.

More than 4.2 million Georgians voted in the midterm election, a turnout of 56 percent among the state’s 7.51 million eligible voters. Two-thirds of those votes — more than 2.8 million — were cast in early voting, 95 percent of those in-person, and the remainder by absentee ballots mailed.

That turnout resulted in a Democratic sweep of statewide offices, starting with Bottoms defeating billionaire health care executive Rick Jackson, who spent nearly $200 million of his own money in a losing effort to succeed Republican Gov. Brian Kemp, who was term-limit tied.

Ending a 24-year Republican hold on the governor’s office will be Georgia’s first woman and first Black governor and the first Black woman governor in the United States.

Georgia’s last Democratic governor was Roy Barnes, who served from 1999 to 2003. More than a century of Democratic control of the state House and Senate ended when Republicans won a House majority in 2002 and a Senate majority 2004.

Other statewide Democratic victories included McLaurin defeating Republican Greg Dolezal for lieutenant governor, Penny Brown Reynolds over Republican Tim Fleming for secretary of state, and Tanya Miller’s win against Republican Brian Strickland for attorney general.

Democrats also won both of the two contested seats on the Public Service Commission, giving Democrats a 3 to 2 edge in the utility rate-setting body.

On a night when the U.S. House flipped, Georgia’s congressional delegation remains nine Republicans and five Democrats.