The director of Georgia's child welfare agency is publicly accusing Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of turning the state's troubled foster care system into a campaign prop, and she says the senator's record doesn't match his advertising.
Candice Broce, who leads the Georgia Division of Family and Children Services, fired back after Ossoff released a campaign ad titled "Our Kids" that touts his oversight work on foster care. In a post on X, Broce said Ossoff has done little to deliver real help to the children and caseworkers on the front lines, even as he claims credit for exposing problems.
The dispute lands squarely in a competitive Georgia Senate race. Ossoff, who ran unopposed for the Democratic nomination, will face Rep. Mike Collins, who won the Republican nod after defeating former football coach Derek Dooley in a mid-June GOP runoff, in November. And the question Broce is raising is a pointed one: Did Ossoff actually fix anything, or did he just hold hearings and cut an ad?
Broce's criticism, reported by Fox News Digital, did not mince words. She framed the dispute as a matter of who shows up and who doesn't.
"For five years, I've been in the trenches fighting for vulnerable children and foster care reform alongside thousands of DFCS workers. Trust us when we say Jon Ossoff is nowhere to be found."
She then rattled off a list of things Ossoff failed to deliver. He didn't get more funding for DFCS after calling the agency "incompetent and resource-strapped." He didn't secure more federal support for child advocacy centers despite Georgia's requests. He didn't fix federal law that Broce says is putting group homes out of business. And he hasn't streamlined adoptions for children already placed with loving families.
"Jon's ad sounds great," Broce wrote, "but his words are meaningless to the men and women in the arena."
That's a sharp charge from someone who has spent years inside Georgia's state government. Before leading DFCS, Broce served as chief deputy executive counsel and chief operating officer to Gov. Brian Kemp. In the latter role, she said roughly forty state agencies reported to her. She is not a newcomer to the bureaucratic challenges of child welfare, and she clearly resents Ossoff positioning himself as the one who exposed them.
Ossoff's "Our Kids" ad highlights what his campaign describes as a yearlong bipartisan investigation into Georgia's foster care system, conducted alongside Republican Sen. Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee. The ad references "a scathing report" and presents the probe, along with new legislation, as evidence of Ossoff's commitment to protecting children and holding the system accountable.
The Ossoff campaign's investigation reportedly found that children in Georgia's foster care system were likely sex trafficked while in state care. That is a serious finding, and no one disputes that the system faces deep problems.
But Broce's argument is not that the problems are fake. Her argument is that Ossoff used those problems for hearings, reports, and campaign messaging without delivering meaningful help to the agency charged with solving them. It is the difference between diagnosing a disease and prescribing a treatment.
She drew a direct comparison to Georgia's other Democratic senator, Raphael Warnock, citing his community events for vulnerable mothers and children and his work on adoption-related measures. Warnock, who won't face reelection until 2028, apparently earned Broce's respect in a way Ossoff has not.
"Compare his child welfare record to Warnock's. It's crystal clear which U.S. Senator from Georgia cares about vulnerable families and kids, and it's not Jon."
That distinction matters. When a state agency head, one appointed under a Republican governor, singles out a Democrat as the senator who actually helps, and it isn't the one running the campaign ad, the contrast speaks for itself. Warnock himself has drawn scrutiny in other contexts, including making public accusations without evidence, but on foster care, Broce credits him over his Georgia colleague.
The Ossoff campaign did not take the criticism quietly. An unnamed spokesperson responded to Fox News Digital with language that was unusually aggressive, even by campaign standards.
"Candice Broce is a partisan political hack irresponsibly placed in charge of care for the state's most vulnerable kids. Instead of whining that her dangerous incompetence was made public, she should fix her broken agency."
The campaign also cited the Office of the Child Advocate and juvenile court judges as having corroborated the dysfunction at DFCS. In a separate statement, Ossoff's representatives said the senator "led oversight, passed an anti-trafficking law, and helped save foster care funding President Trump cut," while accusing Broce of deflecting blame.
The campaign further alleged that juvenile court judges accused Broce of suggesting that children with special needs be held in juvenile detention while DFCS searched for placements. Broce denied the allegation and described it as politically motivated.
None of the specific judges were named in the exchange. And the specific anti-trafficking law the campaign referenced was not identified by title or number. These are the kinds of details that would help voters evaluate the competing claims, and their absence is notable.
What makes this dispute instructive is not just the back-and-forth between a senator and a state official. It is the broader pattern it illustrates: a Washington politician holds hearings, issues a report, and then runs a campaign ad claiming credit, while the people doing the daily work say they never saw any help arrive.
Broce put it plainly: "If you're going to beat us down, show up with something to make it better. He didn't do that."
She also pointed to real money that did flow to DFCS, more than $100 million in state funds secured from both Republican and Democratic state legislators. That bipartisan state-level support, she argued, came from lawmakers who actually engaged with the agency's needs. The implication is clear: Ossoff's bipartisan investigation produced headlines, but the bipartisan funding came from elsewhere.
This kind of accountability gap is hardly unique to Ossoff. Senate races across the country feature candidates who confuse oversight with accomplishment. In Maine, for instance, scandal has complicated a developing Senate contest, and voters there face similar questions about which candidates deliver results and which deliver rhetoric.
Ossoff's November matchup with Rep. Collins will test whether Georgia voters are satisfied with the senator's first-term record or ready for a change. Foster care may not dominate the campaign, but the "Our Kids" ad was clearly designed to be a centerpiece, a bipartisan accomplishment Ossoff could run on in a swing state that rewards candidates who work across the aisle.
Broce's public rebuke complicates that narrative. It is one thing for a Republican opponent to question a Democrat's record. It is another for the state official who runs the agency in question to say the senator's involvement produced nothing of value on the ground.
The Ossoff campaign's response, calling Broce an "unqualified partisan political hack", may energize the base, but it does not answer her core question. She didn't ask for praise. She asked for results. Democratic candidates in competitive races have increasingly struggled to answer that kind of challenge. The pattern of dodging tough questions rather than addressing them head-on has become a recognizable feature of recent cycles.
Broce, for her part, left the door open. "If he decides today that he actually wants to help us and vulnerable Georgia kids, we'd welcome him with open arms," she said. That is not the language of a partisan looking for a fight. It is the language of someone who has been waiting for help that never came.
Meanwhile, the broader Senate landscape continues to produce its own dramas. From FBI search warrants served on a sitting Virginia Senate leader to Democrats breaking with their own party on key votes, the institution is under pressure from every direction. Voters are paying attention to who delivers and who performs.
The children in Georgia's foster care system did not ask to become a campaign issue. They need caseworkers, placements, funding, and functioning institutions. What they got from Sen. Ossoff, if Broce's account holds, was a hearing, a report, and a television ad.
Ossoff's team insists the senator's oversight exposed genuine horrors, children trafficked while in state care, and that his legislative work produced real results. Those are serious claims that deserve serious documentation, not just campaign talking points.
But Broce's challenge stands unanswered in one fundamental respect: she named specific things Ossoff could have done and didn't. More funding. Federal support for child advocacy centers. Fixes to federal law affecting group homes. Streamlined adoptions. The campaign's response was to attack her credentials, not to check off a single item on her list.
Voters in Georgia will decide whether a yearlong investigation and a polished ad amount to a record, or whether the woman who runs the agency is right that the senator was nowhere to be found when it mattered.
Campaign ads are easy. Showing up is hard. And the people who actually care for vulnerable children tend to know the difference.
