It appears the GOP fall in satisfaction was not enough to boost the Democrats in the special elections in Georgia and South Carolina, as CNN is reporting the GOP has retained the Georgia and South Carolina seats, although neither by convincing margins:
Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in a high-stakes special election for a Georgia House seat on Tuesday, denying Democrats their first major victory of the Donald Trump era.
Handel led Ossoff by 4.8 percentage points with more than three-fourths of the 6th District’s precincts having reported their results at 10 p.m. ET, in the most expensive House race in US history.
The South Carolina seat is somewhat closer. Just for fun, let’s update the line graphs:
Data Source: Ballotpedia and CNN
Data Source: Ballotpedia and CNN
(Yeah, I need a better charting tool.) As we can see, the Democrats made significant gains, echoing the dissatisfaction we saw in the Gallup poll cited here. The GOP may have technically won, but it appears the wave of reaction to the buffoonery in the national GOP is having a real impact.
In fact, the winners of these two races may be sighing with relief that they did not have to vote for the AHCA. But what will happen if the Senate follows through with their own bill and the House has to vote for the new bill? Are these winners going to run screaming from the room – or will they embrace this opportunity to show their loyalty to Party over constituents?
And the Democrats must regroup and try to understand how they’ve failed in Montana, Kansas, Georgia, and South Carolina. All are Republican strongholds, but it’s worth asking the question – was the candidate in each case up to the task? Or were they quixotic candidates selected by fragmented, limping locals who didn’t realize the seat might be available to a strong candidate with a record of local governance? Or have they failed to cultivate and train such people? While there’s certainly an attraction to finding that candidate with no experience but lots of face recognition, generally the best candidates are folks who’ve served on councils and in state houses, as they can demonstrate their competency in running these sorts of things – and, if they are prone to corruption, you can maybe catch them at it before they make it to the national level. Not that this always works, but it’s an approach with some likelihood of success, no?
The final word? The Democrats make strides in key strongholds, but don’t break through the barrier. Keep working at the local level, as state houses are almost as important as Congress.
We’ll reform the GOP back to acceptability only by beating them at the polls.
