What Jon Ossoff's Loss Means For The 2018 Elections
Tuesday evening, Republican Karen Handel won a shockingly close election in Georgia's 6th congressional district — one that has been red for decades, but has recently turned purple with the election of President Trump.
Democrats and Republicans poured money into the race (making it the most expensive congressional election ever), reading the future of their parties into one of the few congressional elections occurring before 2018. Democrats saw it as a test of their seemingly re-activated base, while Republicans wondered whether or not the momentum of the Trump election could hold up after his contentious first 150 days in office. So, what are the takeaways from last night's results? Here's what you should read.
This Isn't A Disaster For Democrats
David Wasserman writes that Republicans were favored by the outsized attention that the elections received last night, but that the close margins in Georgia and South Carolina show a Democratic wave that even the red south can't resist come 2018:
[J]ust one state over… Archie Parnell… shockingly came within three points of Republican Ralph Norman in a district President Trump carried by 18 points last November… [Parnell] outperformed polls and expectations precisely because the race flew under the radar, not despite it… The GA-06 election drew over 259,000 voters — an all-time turnout record for a stand-alone special election and an amazing 49,000 more than participated in the 2014 midterm in GA-06. The crush of attention motivated GOP voters who might have otherwise stayed home, helping Handel to victory.
Open Seats Will Become More Contentious
Scott Bland writes that the truth of the matter about Georgia 6th is that it probably wouldn't have been in play if Tom Price were simply running for re-election. The resources put into the open seat signal, and the close outcome, point to heated races in open seats come 2018:
Rep. Tom Price carried this district with more than 60 percent of the vote in November, even as Trump surprisingly carried the longtime GOP bastion by less than 2 percentage points… he results looked much more like Trump's presidential showing than past local GOP campaigns. It's part of the reason why Democratic candidates have flooded into the race for one Miami-area Republican House seat and stayed away from the other.
[Politico]
It's Going To Be Hard To Avoid Trump
Despite the efforts of both campaigns to avoid defining themselves through Donald Trump, the race became a national proxy war. If Democrats want to win they need to determine how to navigate that landscape, be it through playing up anti-Trump sentiment, or defining themselves differently:
For both of the candidates, Trump was He Who Must Not Be Named as the race wound down… Despite their agreement on this point, the two candidates had found themselves bit players in a high-stakes contest whose stakes, to the audience outside the Sixth District, were almost entirely symbolic. Win or lose, either of them would be just one vote in a deadlocked Congress… Just as Handel aspired to be as generic a Republican as possible, Ossoff hoped be… a blank slate, a nice young man in whom disgruntled voters of all stripes could see the alternative they wanted… a positionless vessel of 2017's cross-cutting political angst. It was a decision many would second-guess after the results were in. For this district, at least, Ossoff believed it was the only way he could possibly win.
…But Democrats Need To Cut Above Mudslinging
Many in this post agree that Ossoff was dragged down by ads that tied him big Democratic figures like Nancy Pelosi and Breitbart headlines involving Kathy Griffin. Matthew Yglesias, using results from the recent UK election, argues that Democrats should use bold policy proposals to overshadow the muck:
[R]unning on a bold policy agenda helped focus voters' minds on policy rather than on the (extremely long) list of controversial Corbyn statements and associations from past years. Pundits had long expected Corbyn to get crushed at the polls, and had Theresa May succeeded in running an election focused on the Falklands War, the Irish Republican Army, and unilateral nuclear disarmament, she would have won. But instead, the UK ended up with a campaign about promises to nationalize utilities, eliminate university tuition, and raise taxes… Ossoff's effort to stay bland and inoffensive let hazy personal and culture war issues dominate the campaign — and even in a relatively weak Trump district, that was still a winning formula for Republicans.
[Vox]
But Overall, Don't Read Too Much Into It
Philip Bump argues that the trends that are seemingly decipherable from the special election are contaminated by too many variables to be valuable — allowing anyone to come to a conclusion that they want to see:
We now know the winners: The two Republicans. But we don't really know the meaning…Consider that last November both of the seats were won by Republican candidates by more than 20 points, but on Tuesday night by fewer than 4. But then, one of a million caveats: Last November featured two well-known incumbent Republicans brushing off unknown (and relatively weak) Democrats… Ossoff had House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi hung around his neck… In 2012, Mitt Romney won [the district] by 23 points, but Donald Trump won it by less than 2. The South Carolina seat, though, became more Republican, jumping from Romney's 11.5-point win to an 18.5-point victory for Trump… As with so much of politics, we're left eyeballing scattered tea leaves at the bottom of a deep mug — and seeing what we want to see.
