The Times has the best live blog of GA-6. SC5 was much closer than anyone saw coming.
I will dig in the numbers tomorrow, but let me suggest the following. So if this read is right – and I want to look at a county breakdown of rural versus suburban, it suggests a Democratic comeback in rural areas.
If this holds it would mean very important things for Senate and Governor’s races in the Midwest and in Florida.
I am pretty disappointed in GA-6. As of this writing Ossoff has not really outperformed Clinton. If you want to look at the glass half full, though, you can argue that you would take it. Holding the upscale gains in places like GA-6 while cutting the margins in rural places would be a pretty powerful thing.
But it really depends on the numbers.
2016 prez results may represent a Dem ceiling (or so) in places where Trump slumped, but a floor in places where he ran well. https://t.co/0XI07B4A2u
— Kyle Kondik (@kkondik) June 21, 2017
Ossoff really needed to put it away in the first round of voting. I donated some money to his campaign, but expected he’d have a difficult time, at best, pulling off the upset win. These districts we’ve seen so far are all ones that should have never been close in the first place. How that bodes in 2018 remains to be seen. I am interested in what sorts of candidates are recruited to challenge GOP incumbents, how many GOP incumbents decide to retire rather than face reelection in the next few months, and the fallout from the healthcare legislation outcome. My district has an announced candidate much earlier than I’ve ever seen. Our county’s party is very energized in a way that was not the case in a very long time (and certainly not during the time I’ve lived here). Way too early to predict the House flipping. Could happen and I would not write it off, and I would not be surprised if you are right about a comeback in some rural areas.
I live in Clyburn’s district, but I saw ads for Parnell, Pope, and Norman. Pope ran hard hard right on immigration and police. It was all he featured in his disgusting ads. Yet he was the Chamber candidate, and Norman is even further right when you look at their voting records. Norman’s ads on the other hand were more personal, and how he was going to “change Obama’s foreign policy and support Trump”. Parnell was a quirky kinda guy from his ads, but definitely catchy. I found him likeable, and he ran on protecting Social Security/Medicare/Veterans, and cutting taxes. However, his tax ad also focused on “closing loopholes for corporations and the rich”.
Parnell wound up losing by less than Ossoff.
It is worth understanding better why he did as well as he did.
Candidates matter.
What bothered me a little about Ossoff was him saying he wouldn’t commit to voting for Pelosi for Speaker. It’s the sort of too cute stuff that leads people to question your sincerity. I saw Shaheen do that in 2014 in a debate – she refused to say she supported Obama.
It looked terrible.
Make no mistake: GA-6 is a bad result. To not improve on Clinton’s showing despite all the stuff that has happened since the election is not good.
But then she did win.
Or Republicans are going to vote Republican, no matter what.
As you said elsewhere, what is important is if we gained all the Clinton/R-House–>D-house permanently, and we go back to losing rural areas 60-40. That would be a potent mix.
○ Karen Handel wins 53%, Jon Ossoff 47%
Thanks was looking for that in the diary or at least in an update comment.
More precisely: With 100% of precincts reporting, Handel had 52.7% and Ossoff had 47.3%.
Not everything is in.
The times projection has Handal +3.7.
I believe what remains out are mail in ballots, which have tended to favor Ossoff (which is odd).
https://www.nytimes.com/elections/results/georgia-congressional-runoff-ossoff-handel?hp&action=c
lick&pgtype=Homepage&clickSource=story-heading&module=photo-spot-region®ion=top-n
ews&WT.nav=top-news
Oh, guess when The Guardian states With 100% precincts reporting that they means something other than all the votes are in.
It was 52 to 48 when the AP called it for Handel not too long after the vote tallies started to roll in. Normally, early calls and the percentages are reported.
% reporting is losing its meaning when there is so much early vote.
% reported is a calculation based on precincts. Early vote is reported all at once. So about half the vote has no precinct at all, and is reported first.
The networks struggled with this wrt to Florida on election night. The count sort of hung at 91% for a while – but really closer to 98% of the total vote had reported.
So, how much did it cost the Democratic Party to lose in the GA-6 election by 5.4%? At least no money and “grassroots” voter energy were squandered in support of a former GS and Exxon/Mobile nominee to lose the SC-5 special election by four points.
Upwards of 30 million.
It was good money for the DC Consultants.
I REALLY wonder about the Democratic enthusiasm over the long haul.
I think the Dem leading pundits have build unrealistic expectations. When O’Care comes crashing down next week, all of these prediction about how inept the GOP is are going to look foolish.
I remember that by 1982 people were tired. There was an explosion of energy, but by mid ’82 it was receding. We won a fair number of House seats in ’82, but the Senate was disappointing.
Reagan became normal. Trump is going to become normal.
1982 House: D gained 26 seat increasing to 269 seats.
1982 Senate: only three open seats — two R and one I (caucused with Democrats) — net result was switching Harry Byrd for Frank Lautenberg in the Dem caucus which was a net positive. Lost NV and gained NM – another net positive.
It was after the midterms and as real scandals in his administrations began to surface that RR sort of normalized himself for the ’84 election. In some ways it was the playbook that WJC borrowed from in ’95-96.
At least Democrats back then weren’t exhausting themselves relitigating the ’80 election outcome and focused on RR’s policies.
I do remember analysts back then who blamed Carter’s loss on the Kennedy insurgency. Sound familiar?
I think its a huge mistake to compare any elections with 2016. Hillary’s campaign targeted what they thought were suburban Republicans that would vote for Hillary over a person like Trump.
This does not apply to this election, and hopefully not to 2020. For one, the opponent isn’t Trump (and the trouble most conservative voters have with Trump is his personality, not his ideology so you can’t tie them to Trump either). And no sane D should ever consider targeting Rs as their path to victory, though it seems Ostoff did based on what little I’ve read (I would also question the sanity of the DNC and a significant number of Democrats, but thats another topic).
Ossoff and Clinton’s percentages were nearly identical.
It was almost the same race in the end.
It might be that the upscale GOP voters who went to Clinton are gone for good. That would be a good thing – even if it wasn’t enough to win this seat.
But Ostoff also targeted the same votes Hillary did, as I said. What I am saying is that its better to view 2016 as a one time oddity, instead of basing any analyses or electoral strategies on that weird campaign.
This diary was trying to make conclusions about rural votes in SC-5 by comparing results to 2016. I am not a proponent of a data-only approach to campaigning in general, but I consider basing it on 2016 data criminal.
Criminal is a bit harsh. Mistaken is better. And for the record, I don’t know which of you two is right.
Love reading your (hopefully urbane) arguments.