Washington: If Democrat Jon Ossoff wins the Senate run-off in Georgia, he will be the youngest person elected to the US Senate in 40 years.
The 33-year old will also have what is believed to be one of the closest personal connections to Australia of any member of Congress in American history.
Ossoff’s mother, Heather Fenton, was born and raised in Sydney before moving to the US at the age of 23 and settling in the Atlanta area in Georgia.
The business graduate married Richard Ossoff, a Harvard graduate who runs a specialist legal and accounting publishing company in Atlanta. Fenton has held several senior management roles and co-founded a non-profit group aimed at helping elect more women to political office.
The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age understand that Jon Ossoff, the pair’s only child, has travelled to Australia several times. He previously held Australian citizenship that has now lapsed.
While still at high school Ossoff, who was raised Jewish, interned for the late civil rights icon and Democratic congressman John Lewis before graduating from Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington D.C.
He has spent most of his career as a filmmaker and helped make several documentaries about politics in Africa and terrorist group ISIS that aired on the BBC.
In 2017 he narrowly lost a closely watched congressional seat in Georgia but won pre-selection to be one of the Democrats’ two Senate candidates in last November’s election.
Reaf the article by Matthew Knott in The Sydney Morning Herald.