GA-6 Special

Today is election day for the sixth district of Georgia. The previous congressman, Tom Price, resigned to become the HHS Secretary.

Rather than have primaries, the election is open with any and all folks allowed to participate. If one candidate receives 50% of the vote, they win outright. Otherwise the top two vote getters will face off on June 20. As of right now there are five Democrats, eleven Republicans and two independents declared and on the ballot.

However, national Democrats have all consolidated behind one candidate, Jon Ossoff. With all the other Democrats essentially folding, he is essentially guaranteed first place in the election. What national Democrats are really hoping for is that they will gin up turnout so much that he will manage to get 50% of the vote and kill the whole thing right then and there. That is unlikely but possible.

On the Republican side, there hasn't been a consolidation but most of the attention seems to be focusing on two candidates, Bob Gray and Karen Handel. They are your likely frontrunners but since the Republican field is so split, you're looking at the likelihood that the winner is going to be the one that cracks 15% of the vote.

Do Democrats have a chance in this race? Yes, but it's going to take a measure of luck, major Democratic turnout and a good dose of non-Democratic voter apathy. The best scenario for them is to pull in a huge volume of Democrats and sway the non-Republican voters, thus pulling Ossoff across the 50%+1 threshold. However, as this is R +8 district, that hill seems like it's just a bit too steep.

After that, Ossoff will face off against like Gray or Handel and it will turn into a more conventional race. It will likely become even more of a referendum on the policies of Mr. Trump than it is now with Ossoff attacking the Republican likely to have to defend them. The danger for the Democrats, I think, is even if feeling against Mr. Trump is running high (not a guarantee) they may not be able to sustain the high volume of energy required to swing this race in a mono-y-mono situation. Democrats are going balls to the wall to try and take this thing now. If they fall short, the burnout potential is high, especially if people are allowed to lapse back into normal voting patterns. I think it highly unlikely that the Republican will win by eight points, but reflex muscle alone could be enough to win by two or three unless there is sustained outrage.

So, the big drama for tonight is who will win out among the Republicans and whether Ossoff gets over 50%. If he does not, expect a certain degree of fizzle barring something huge that galvanizes the Democrats for another sustained push.

*UPDATE*

As expected, Ossoff failed to log more than 50%. He did get a huge sure at the beginning of the night as the early vote, especially from Atlanta came in. But his numbers went in steady decline for the rest of the night as the day-of voting and more conservative areas rolled in. There was a bit of extra drama as the count got stuck at 54% of precincts reporting for a long time. This apparently was due to a data glitch at one of the counting stations in Fulton County. Once fixed, the count surged instantly to 84% of precincts counted and Ossoff dropped below the 50% line. It appears that he is going to finish right around 48%.

On the other side of the rice, Karen Handel smoked her competitors, finishing with nearly 20% of the vote. Her closest competitor, Bob Gray, finished with just under 11% of the vote. Given the make-up of the district, Handel will be the prohibitive favorite. This is probably even more true given that Handel favored Evan McMullen in the Presidential race so the novelty of making this an anti-Trump campaign will be diminished somewhat. That's also means that much of the out-of-state money that has come in to support Ossoff will start to dry up.

The final vote is June 20 but don't expect it to get the kind of attention that the first round did. A head-to-head race favors the Republican and without the potential for a Trump rebuke, much of the steam driving the Democratic side will likely dissipate.