The Georgia 6th District was not decided in last night’s special election, as Jon Ossoff came up just short, with 48.1% of the vote, against a collection of GOP-affiliated candidates plus a few Democrats and Independents. Ballotpedia reports that trailing Ossoff, but qualifying for the June runoff election, is Karen Handel, with 19.8% of the vote.
Both qualifying candidates have their work cut out for them. As I’m sure most pundits are commenting, Handel’s 19.8% showing is something of a smoke-screen; the GOP does tend to come together when a final election vote is called, as we saw last November, so she will be counting on all the votes for the other GOP candidates to come to her on June 20th.
But that Trump reference is also a potential anchor around her neck. If Ossoff can tie Handel to Trump, and if Trump and/or the GOP manages to embarrass themselves in a very public manner, it’s possible that Handel will still lose on June 20th.
The bad news for Ossoff? There were four Democrat-affiliated competitors in the race – but none polled better than .3%. Add them all together and that’s less than a percentage point of the total vote. That’s not good enough to get him over the 50% mark he’ll need to become the next Representative for the Georgia 6th. The good news? Again, from Ballotpedia, and surprising to me:
President Donald Trump won in Georgia’s 6th District by a margin of 1.5 percent in 2016. This represents a significant decrease in the relative support for the Republican nominee from the previous four presidential elections. The next closest presidential race in the district since 2000 was when John McCain won the district by 18.9 percent in 2008.
This suggests a high sensitivity to Trump’s miscues. As the 6th district apparently includes much of northern Atlanta, the voters in the 6th may not be in as much economic distress as the average Trump voter. This again suggests that tying Handel to Trump may be an effective strategy for Ossoff.
The chart for the district since 2000 merely demonstrates GOP dominance:
Data Source: Ballotpedia
Sometimes the Democrats can’t even field a candidate.
