Inside the fallout from Jon Ossoff’s private push to oust Georgia’s Democratic party chair
“[He] has now inadvertently made his efforts to push her out much, much harder,” a party insider told me.
As Democrats search for answers to an election that delivered Republicans total control of the White House and both chambers of Congress, they seek accountability from the leaders who critics say didn’t do enough to prevent the red wave.
Nikema Williams, who serves double duty as a Congresswoman representing Atlanta and the chair of the Democratic Party of Georgia, is one of those leaders under fire after President-elect Donald Trump won the state four years behind President Joe Biden, flipping the state blue. Voters also elected Democratic senators to represent them for the first time since 2005.
One of those senators—Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA)—asked Williams to step down as chair of the DPG in a call I exclusively reported on Tuesday afternoon, per two sources familiar with the senator’s request.
A source close to Williams said she reached out to Ossoff and asked for a phone call after she learned he told other people he would ask her to step down. The same source said Williams is not considering resigning at this time. But when I caught up with the congresswoman outside the House chamber following votes late Tuesday evening, she said otherwise: “I have not told anybody any of that.”
Williams also said the party is internally discussing the path ahead with DPG’s governing body.
“There are a lot of people with a lot of comments that are not involved in the party, never have been and are not looking at what’s in the best interest of the party.
The elevator closed before Williams could answer my final question about what she would say to those people.
Greg Bluestein of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Williams sent messages to friends and allies about her conversation with Ossoff. In texts obtained by the AJC, she claimed Ossoff told her: “I don’t want you leading the party with me at the top of the ticket.”
She also said he told her: “I hope this doesn’t have to become public, but this is something I’m absolutely planning to pursue.”
A spokesperson for Ossoff did not respond to a request for comment.
A source inside the DPG told me that initially, there were post-election rumblings for Williams to step aside. But after Ossoff’s request, she feels she can’t step down now. This is especially true after a groundswell of encouragement from power brokers in the state, including Black women, who have felt pushed to the side by the party for too long. I’m told by another source close to the DPG that there’s concern within the Georgia Democratic establishment about the optics of replacing the congresswoman because it risks alienating women and Black voters in the state. (The Georgia Federation of Democratic Women has called for Williams’ resignation.)
“Jon Ossoff has now inadvertently made his efforts to push her out much, much harder,” the first DPG insider said.
The source close to the DPG also said Sen. Raphael Warnock, Georgia’s other Democratic senator elected in a runoff election on the same day as Ossoff in 2021, initially planned to defend Williams but that he has instead aligned with Ossoff.
I was with the AJC’s Tia Mitchell on Tuesday evening when she asked if Williams should step down as chair of the Georgia Democrats.
“I think we need to get beyond the current distraction and get focused on the work,” he said after a lengthy pause.
Williams’s critics—including nearly a dozen who lost their state House races and the Young Georgia Democrats—blame the party’s statewide underperformance on poor fundraising and leadership. (Fundraising restrictions bind Williams as a sitting member of Congress.)
But her allies point to the fact that Georgia has become a presidential swing state under Williams’ leadership. And although Harris lost the state last week, she received 70,000-plus more votes than Biden and Georgia fared much better than the other battleground states. The source inside the DPG told me the organization’s issues span beyond the chairmanship to persisting challenges in connecting with rural voters, who make up a broad swath of the state’s electorate.
Williams was elected to Congress following the death in 2020 of John Lewis, the iconic civil rights activist and congressman. She was elected to lead the DPG in January 2019, becoming the first Black woman, the third woman and the second Black person to chair the party. (Williams was one of 16 electors for Georgia in the Electoral College following the 2020 presidential election.) She also serves as a vice chair for the Democratic Women’s Caucus. Before federal office, she was a Georgia state senator for four years and worked as vice president for public policy at Planned Parenthood Southeast.
Ossoff became the youngest member of the Senate elected in four decades, the first millennial senator and the first Jewish member of the Senate from Georgia when he defeated then-incumbent Republican Sen. David Perdue in a runoff that attracted intense national attention. His and Warnock’s victory effectively gave Democrats a governing trifecta for the first two years of the Biden administration, with Harris as the tie-breaking vote, which enabled the party to pass sweeping bills like the American Rescue Plan and Inflation Reduction Act despite unanimous Republican opposition.
Ossoff, who is up for reelection in 2026, is expected to be a top Republican target. The GOP will be defending 20 of the 33 seats up for grabs and will face a fierce effort from Democrats to cut into its four-seat majority, which it gained by defeating Democratic or independent incumbents in Ohio, Montana, Pennsylvania and West Virginia.