GA-6 Special election discussion thread

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Alyssa Milano and Christopher Gorham (Don't feel bad, I also had to look up who he was) are volunteering for the Ossoff campaign, driving people to the polls.

Republicans should just give up now IMHO

That not reason for them to give up. They should give up because a R-14 district in off year election in the south is remotely competitive.

The republicans in the district are rapidly abandoning the party, as shown by Trump's very narrow margin. This race should have been viewed as competitive from day 1. They reelected Price big because they thought Clinton would win the presidency and wanted to make sure the house could be a check on her. But they're far less inclined to elect a republican now that Trump is in office.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Alyssa Milano and Christopher Gorham (Don't feel bad, I also had to look up who he was) are volunteering for the Ossoff campaign, driving people to the polls.

Republicans should just give up now IMHO

That not reason for them to give up. They should give up because a R-14 district in off year election in the south is remotely competitive.

The republicans in the district are rapidly abandoning the party, as shown by Trump's very narrow margin. This race should have been viewed as competitive from day 1. They reelected Price big because they thought Clinton would win the presidency and wanted to make sure the house could be a check on her. But they're far less inclined to elect a republican now that Trump is in office.

Price was unopposed in 2016.

Please check an election's results before talking about them. This is what really happened, per wikipedia:

Georgia's 6th Congressional District election, 2016 [2]
Party     Candidate   Votes   %
Republican     Tom Price (Incumbent)   201,088   61.68
Democratic   Rodney Stooksbury   124,917   38.32
Total votes    326,005   100
Republican hold

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I mean didn't Republicans have an 8% advantage in early votes in KS-04 and Thompson was at 60% in early returns?

He only got 60% of the EV in Sedgwick County. It's just that it took a while for the rural counties to cancel it out because, well, they're rural counties - and were left to do it on their own for much of the night because the more conservative ED Sedgwick vote came in really slowly.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Remember guys, it's not as if the 2016 electorate here was 47% D or similar - Clinton got a lot of republicans here and so will Ossoff.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

^ In that case, anything less than 46% support for all democrats combined should result in the head of the DCCC being fired.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Because this race has been effectively nationalized. Most voters will be voting based off their feelings on Trump, and turnout will determine the results. The democrats need to find someone who can turn out their voters for off-year stuff, and fast.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

While it's disappointing to see an R-registered EV advantage, I don't care what sort of electorate it is as long as it gives Ossoff 50% of the vote.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Seriously, why haven't the other Dems dropped out at this point?  Are they trying to sabotage Ossoff?

Random Perennials don't care about "bowing to establishment wishes". And at this point it's too late to get off the ballot. Getting 1.5% by staying in vs. 0.9% by dropping out probably won't matter on the grand scheme of things.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Anything below 45% for all Dems combined should result in the firing of the head of the DCCC.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

So I've been exploring the ads that the candidates in this race have put out, and I'm really surprised that Boy Gray managed to fit every single black Republican in the sixth district into a single ad.  It must have taken a lot of work to find them all:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=0YpLGWqime4

Also, is it just me, or does this Karen Handel attack ad resemble a horror movie trailer?  It's probably the cheesiest thing I've seen in a long time:

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=XFb8CAzvy_Y

What makes the Gray ad weird is where that music has been used before: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzYRKpzg62Y

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Honestly I'll take Trump's tweets over Obama's attitude of never caring about house races ever.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

AP results by County: http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/files/elections/2017/by_county/GA_Page_0418.html?SITE=AP&SECTION=POLITICS

In the counties as a whole, Clinton won Cobb 48/46, Fulton 68/27, and DeKalb 79/17. But the district just skates through part of each county, so those numbers aren't really that helpful. Still, Ossoff should do better in DeKalb than in Fulton, and better in Fulton than in Cobb.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

SOS results page: http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/67317/Web02-state/#/

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Keep in mind this is entirely early vote

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Ossoff finishes at 58.6% in DeKalb. Clinton got 57.0%.


The rest of Fulton will decide if there will be a runoff.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Cobb is done: Ossoff 41.3%, Clinton 39.9%

Ossoff at 50.3% overall. Fulton could easily allow him to win outright.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Is there a chance Ossoff calls for a recount if things stay tight? I'm sure he'd like to win outright if he could.

Ossoff can't ask for a recount. GA law for recount margins is based on closeness of candidates, not closeness to certain thresholds.

Doesn't mean he can't ask a court for one.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

WULFRIC PROJECTION: OSSOFF VS. HANDEL RUNOFF

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Why isn't anyone here thinking this could've been a strategic move on Sanders part? I live in Georgia near the district so I get to see all the ads (despite living outside of it) and most of the attack ads on Ossoff are already calling him too liberal and a rubber-stamp Democrat as it is--a Sanders endorsement will just add fuel to the attacks. This isn't a national race but a local one and the voting habits need to be taken into consideration.

I agree with you on this.  A Sanders endorsement wouldn't gain Ossoff many more D votes than he's already going to get, but it sure would have turned off a bunch of the crossover R's that he needs.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

A week after complaining that Democrats didn't do enough for Thompson, he's all "Ossoff who?"

Well he's not a democrat so he's not exactly obligated to support each and every dem.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I don't like the optics of winning GA-06 but not Montana

Democrats always troubled by what they were/are/becoming.

I don't necessarily disagree, but Quist could have won this race without breaking a sweat had he actually run a good campaign. In fact, Republicans should be glad that (a) he turned out to be a poor candidate and (b) that Gianforte has run a decent campaign. But like Figueira said, the race certainly isn't over yet, and I'd still rate it Tossup/Tilt R given the high floor Quist has.

My point about internal polls not always being wrong stands. Ossoff at 48% and Handel at 47% isn't implausible, especially if the undecideds are Republican-leaning Independents. Like Bacon and Castro said, I'm sure this was released to motivate Ossoff supporters and donors and not get complacent.

Even Gravis gets it right sometimes. So "not always being wrong" is not some sort of high status. And you can spin that result any way you want. Sure, it's good news (for dems) because it shows a close race. But it's bad news because it was a poll that Ossoff had full control over to suppress or manipulate the methodology of in any way he chose, and all he could get was a tie.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The House's passage of Trumpcare is probably going to provide a much needed boost to Ossoff's campaign and might even push him over the edge to win the runoff.

Seeing as this district repeatedly voted for tom price Im not so certain.

I'm fairly certain his 2016 win was more on placing a check on Hillary, who was presumed to be the inevitable presidential victor, than anything else. As for his earlier wins, well, the Pre-Trump Republican Party is an entirely different animal. 2016 was a realigning election and we should not give much weight to 2014, 12, etc. as a result.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Landmark Communications has Handel up 49.1 to Ossoff's 46.5.

If that's true, then Handel is in trouble.

Uh...what?

Republican Leaning Pollster. But still, being up 2.5% is not bad news......

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I don't understand why people think it's going to be really close (<0.5). I mean, based on the results of the first round, Ossoff was the favorite and Trump has become even more unpopular now.

The GOP just has a way of always doing better than expected, and they have a tight leash on the one demographic that will cut off their arms to vote.

Except they tend to do worse than expected in democratic waves - few people expected Dems to get the Senate in '06, few people expected Obama to win IN and NC in '08, few people expected Dems to gain 2 senate seats in '12. We definitely seem to be in a potential D wave situation with these specials.

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

I don't understand why people think it's going to be really close (<0.5). I mean, based on the results of the first round, Ossoff was the favorite and Trump has become even more unpopular now.

The GOP just has a way of always doing better than expected, and they have a tight leash on the one demographic that will cut off their arms to vote.

Except they tend to do worse than expected in democratic waves - few people expected Dems to get the Senate in '06, few people expected Obama to win IN and NC in '08, few people expected Dems to gain 2 senate seats in '12. We definitely seem to be in a potential D wave situation with these specials.

Obama was supposed to flip Missouri and take Montana and the Dakotas, and make Arizona as close as Hillary got it. Anyone else before '08 would've gotten a double digit victory under the circumstances.

'12 was a rare exception.

On election night '08, literally no one expected South Dakota to flip, and even North Dakota is a stretch. You have a point about Montana and Missouri, but still, Obama winning Indiana was a surprise. And even if you negate '08, that leaves me with two solid examples - '06 and '12.