GA-06 and SC-05 election day & results thread

[The_Doctor]

Well, Romney isn't president now. Trump is, and he only won the district by 1. But you are right, this seat is more about the narrative anyway. My point was that I seriously doubt that many Democrats will be happy if Ossoff loses only by 1 or 2 instead of 10. They have set their expectations so high that anything other than a win would be a disappointment IMO.

However, isn't it significant if Ossoff finishes with 49% of the vote or something, and implies a sea shift in the college educated electorate?

[The_Doctor]

For our GA people - when do results begin coming in?

[The_Doctor]

Let's ignore the entire history of GA-6 lol. It's been a ruby-red district for years, and hasn't elected a Democrat since the 70's.

This isn't really accurate of course. The district didn't even cover anything near its current territory until your party moved it there in the 1990s in order to gerrymander Newt Gingrich.

OK your goal post moving is a good sign Ossoff wins. Sounds solid.

[The_Doctor]

Let's ignore the entire history of GA-6 lol. It's been a ruby-red district for years, and hasn't elected a Democrat since the 70's.

This isn't really accurate of course. The district didn't even cover anything near its current territory until your party moved it there in the 1990s in order to gerrymander Newt Gingrich.

OK your goal post moving is a good sign Ossoff wins. Sounds solid.

I am supposed to be concerned about a single house district the GOP can simply gerrymander back?

If I were you, I'd be concerned about a lot of things in the political world.

And more evidence you're worried. Excellent.

[The_Doctor]

Massive swing to the Democrats in SC 05. That's pretty amazing.

[The_Doctor]

DDHQ calls it for Norman

By 2%! Bang up job!

[The_Doctor]

Let's ignore the entire history of GA-6 lol. It's been a ruby-red district for years, and hasn't elected a Democrat since the 70's.

This isn't really accurate of course. The district didn't even cover anything near its current territory until your party moved it there in the 1990s in order to gerrymander Newt Gingrich.

OK your goal post moving is a good sign Ossoff wins. Sounds solid.

I am supposed to be concerned about a single house district the GOP can simply gerrymander back?

If I were you, I'd be concerned about a lot of things in the political world.

And more evidence you're worried. Excellent.

Nah.

Ah yes, one word wonders. Do you ever step outside the Trumpite bubble? Nah, you don't venture from it because you're really unable to defend your ideas and your party beyond that. That's why you only show up when the GOP "might" win.

By the way, how's that 2% win in SC from 19% doing for you?

[The_Doctor]

On balance, GA 06 isn't great but SC 05 is a promising sign for the Democrats in 2018. The GOP can't spend $30 million in every district and it means that uncontested seats next year could swing in a wave election.

GA isn't great, but given that Romney won the district by 23%, GA's trend to the Democratic Party is very promising for them. It seems that 47% of the district is now committed to voting Democratic and Handel isn't necessarily safe.  

So two safe GOP seats (historically) became very marginal GOP victories. And if I recall, the GOP had a year like this in 2009 before their wave in 2010.

[The_Doctor]

On balance, the trend for the Democratic Party is still positive. Remember, the SC result has about the same weight as the GA 06 result, and would have more impact in the House swing. The base would have been happy with a win, but I don't think this was again, a bad night, for Democrats. Losing GA 06 by 6 and losing SC by 15 would have been bad. Losing GA 06 by 2 and losing SC by 3 is not a bad night at all.

Mixed, yeah, but the trend remains positive for the Democratic Party.

[The_Doctor]

On balance, the trend for the Democratic Party is still positive. Remember, the SC result has about the same weight as the GA 06 result, and would have more impact in the House swing. The base would have been happy with a win, but I don't think this was again, a bad night, for Democrats. Losing GA 06 by 6 and losing SC by 15 would have been bad. Losing GA 06 by 2 and losing SC by 3 is not a bad night at all.

Mixed, yeah, but the trend remains positive for the Democratic Party.

Are you supporting the Dems now?

Temporarily; open to Pence if things fix up in the GOP. But my views don't really relate to my political views. (Which are pretty conservative)

[The_Doctor]

I'll also own up and admit that my prediction is wrong. We may need to assess how polarized races become when nationalized and I underestimated that, honestly. So I'm wrong there. A lot of Republicans turned out for Handel clearly and polarization helped a lot.

But I think SC 05 also validates that my belief that Trump's approval rating is dragging down Republicans and motivating Democrats to turn out. I also believe that my prediction wasn't unreasonable. It was just wrong and I'm not sure that outside polarization, it was illogical.

The big question I have here is polarization and how much more intense it gets. I don't see an emerging Republican majority coalition as much as intense polarization.

[The_Doctor]

I would point out the Left showed up in both GA 06 and SC 05. It took the GOP tens of millions to show up in GA 06 and a nationalized atmosphere. In the first round, when GOP fire was internally concentrated, Ossoff won 48%. In SC 05, Parnell almost pulled off a massive upset because the Democrats showed up.

I think the big takeaway is that the GOP can increase polarization through nationalization but it doesn't necessarily mean good things in 2018.

[The_Doctor]

Just correcting this wack-ass image that uses DCCC funding for Group A and total contributions (including small donations) for Ossoff; that uses presidential results instead of House results because it self-cherrypicks the data-points for the narrative they want

This is exactly what I was dreading from an Ossoff loss. It wasn't the idea of missing out on an extra seat in Congress or having a battle-hardened incumbent for 2018, it was that people on the left would all pile on about how everyone else is wrong and the party is a giant failure, while cherry-picking statistics to butress their argument. That's not even factoring in the idea that these districts have special elections right now precisely because Trump's admin. thought they were safe (and most of them were, on paper) when they snatched the Representatives out of them.

The fact that we even came this close in districts like KS-4, SC-5 and GA-6 should be cause of celebration on its own, except that months of building up excitement and expectations shifted the goalposts so far that now it is somehow a failure and a disappointment and somehow vindicates that suburbs are TOTALLY lost for Democrats and we should take the establishment folks and string them up!

I mean my god folks.

In the end, Ossoff received the exact same % of the vote he got in round 1 - 48.1%. All that money to get the same exact % of the vote. What a complete waste. Democrats should have never tried in this seat.

And right as I clicked post, this comes in and provides a clear example of what I was saying. Should have never tried? Are you kidding? This race was and had been effectively a toss-up, and circumstances provided for a small Handel win. That's what happens in toss-ups. Each side has a good chance, and in the end one wins for various reasons. It's not like Ossoff never had a chance ffs.

Again, somehow a small loss in a previously-safe Republican district was a waste and big mistake? How does that even make sense?

Democrats are bad at building a sustained organization and movement right now. How may times did the Goldwater people lose before they started winning?

The Democrats right now, today, have it 100x far easier than Barry Goldwater and his crew ever did.

[The_Doctor]

Ossoff get a lower percentage of the vote than in the first round.

Oh, and here's another dumb narrative already circulating on jfern Twitter that's pure BS:

April: 48.12%
June: 48.13%

Comparing SC 05 and GA 06 to prior 2012 / 2014 / 2016 numbers is illuminating. I'll leave it at that. The Democrats are doing extremely well in these areas comparatively.