Six hours. That’s what Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport — the world’s busiest, by passenger volume — has been telling travelers to budget before their flights since the DHS partial shutdown hit its six-week mark. TSA officers have been working without pay since February 14. At larger airports like Hartsfield, up to 40% of agents have been calling out of shifts. ICE officers were deployed to the checkpoint lines on Monday. Delta Air Lines, headquartered in Atlanta, announced it would suspend standalone service for members of Congress until TSA is funded.
Into this chaos walked three Georgia Republicans running for Senate, each with the same answer: Jon Ossoff did this.
“Six hour wait today at the (Atlanta airport). Why? Because our senator, Jon Ossoff, cares more about the Democratic Party than the people of Georgia,” posted former Tennessee football coach Derek Dooley on X on March 22, filming himself at the airport. Rep. Buddy Carter called it a direct result of Ossoff’s vote to “shut down the Department of Homeland Security.” Rep. Mike Collins went further, sharing video of ICE protesters outside the airport and claiming Democrats were “paying protestors before they pay TSA” — a claim with no supporting evidence.
Collins’s campaign account delivered the clearest general-election preview of all: the shutdown would end, it said, when Georgia voters replace “a trust fund kid with a blue collar Georgia trucker who will never force you to wait in a 3-hour line at the airport to protect illegal aliens.”
What Actually Happened
The partial DHS shutdown began when Congress failed to pass full-year funding for the department. Senate Democrats blocked a Republican funding bill that included immigration enforcement provisions they opposed, particularly following the fatal shooting of two Americans in Minnesota by federal immigration officers. The Senate ultimately passed its own bipartisan measure — one that funded TSA and most of DHS but excluded ICE and parts of Customs and Border Protection — by unanimous consent, with Ossoff’s support.
That bill went to the House, where it died. House conservatives rejected it, demanding the ICE funding be restored and a voter ID provision added. Speaker Mike Johnson refused to bring the Senate-passed bill to the floor for a vote, instead marshaling a House Republican short-term measure that passed 213-203, with only three moderate Democrats crossing the aisle. As of Friday, the two chambers had passed incompatible bills and the shutdown showed no signs of ending.
The Senate bill — the one Ossoff voted for, the one that would have immediately restored TSA pay — is now sitting in a drawer in the House.
Carter, Collins, and Dooley represent no votes on either version. They’ve been attacking Ossoff’s position on the Senate bill while their own party’s House caucus is the proximate reason the Senate bill hasn’t become law.
The Political Logic
None of this is subtle, and it’s not supposed to be. The Republican Senate candidates are running against Ossoff, not against each other. A new Emerson/New York Times poll shows Collins leading the Republican primary at roughly 30%, with 40% of Republican primary voters still undecided. A runoff is likely. The candidates need to introduce themselves to a general electorate that currently shows Ossoff leading every one of them — by three, five, and eight points respectively.
The TSA crisis gives all three a turn to film themselves at the airport, post to X, and attach Ossoff’s name to the misery voters are experiencing in person. It doesn’t require policy nuance. It requires a camera and a flight itinerary.
Dooley’s airport post is probably the most polished: “Get in a room and figure it out” plays as frustrated pragmatist, not partisan. He also praised Delta’s decision to cut congressional travel benefits, which lets him implicitly critique Congress as an institution without having to explain why the House Republican caucus rejected the Senate’s bipartisan fix. He’s proposing to strip congressional pay during shutdowns — good applause line, zero path to becoming law.
Collins has been the most aggressive, and the most willing to state things that aren’t true. The “paying protestors” claim spread before any evidence was provided. His campaign’s “trust fund kid” framing is a rehearsed general-election attack that will show up in every ad cycle if he wins the primary.
Carter’s response was the most vanilla — hitting the same notes but with less specificity. Carter has been running as the candidate with the deepest congressional relationships, which cuts against performing outrage at institutional dysfunction.
Ossoff’s Counter
“We could pay TSA agents and end the chaos at airports across the country if Republicans like Buddy Carter, Mike Collins, and Derek Dooley told their Party to quit standing in the way and get it done,” Ossoff’s team said in a statement, per the Georgia Recorder.
The argument is straightforward: the Senate passed a bipartisan bill. House Republicans killed it. Every day Hartsfield-Jackson has six-hour lines is a day House Republicans are choosing the shutdown over a solution. Ossoff’s opponents want to run for Senate while declining to criticize the House caucus they would be joining.
It’s a defensible message. Whether it breaks through in a political environment where “Democrats blocked DHS funding” is a daily Republican talking point on every TV in the state — that’s a different question.
Ossoff was the 49th Democratic senator to vote for the Senate funding bill. He was not the deciding vote. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania was the lone Democrat to vote for the House-aligned Republican version. The right-wing framing is that Ossoff “caused” the shutdown; the correct framing is that he voted for the bipartisan deal that would have ended it.
Voters generally don’t parse who voted for what procedural measure. They see the lines.
What It Means for the Race
The DHS shutdown has done something the Republican primary hadn’t managed to do in three months of campaigning: it gave all three candidates a visceral local grievance to attach to Ossoff’s name. Hartsfield-Jackson is not an abstract institution. It’s the airport where a third of Georgia’s business travel passes through. It’s where Delta, one of the state’s largest employers, is headquartered. Lines that reach six hours at the world’s busiest airport are front-page news in Atlanta.
The candidates’ responses also previewed the general-election pitch each is preparing. Dooley is positioning as the outsider pragmatist, frustrated by both parties. Collins is running the hardest partisan line, betting that Trump-base mobilization and anti-Ossoff turnout can carry him to 50%. Carter is playing establishment Republican, letting the others take the sharp edges.
Ossoff leads all three in current polling. The DHS shutdown won’t be the last test of whether any of these candidates can close that gap — but it’s the first one that showed up in every Georgian’s daily commute.
The lines at Hartsfield are, for now, still six hours long.
Sources
- TSA shutdown becomes key issue in Georgia Senate race among Republicans — Yahoo News — candidate statements and primary polling
- ICE agents deployed to Atlanta airport as shutdown drives long waits — Georgia Recorder — Ossoff statement and airport conditions
- DHS funding bill passes House, but shutdown drags on — CBS News — House vote details and competing bills
- House Vote Sets Up Clash With the Senate on D.H.S. Funding — The New York Times — House Republican opposition to Senate bill
- Senate Votes to Fund TSA and Most of DHS in Bid to End Partial Shutdown — The New York Times — Senate bipartisan bill details
- Georgia 2026 Poll: Senator Ossoff Starts Re-Election Near 50% — Emerson College Polling — general-election matchup polling
- Travel Headaches Take On Political Weight — Daily Wire — Republican candidate social media posts