The perception of Ossaff as an immature millennial, this still being a pretty R district at heart, Handel being a good opponent, the races extreme nationalization, successful attack ads against Ossaff, etc all hurt.
Handel wasn't that good of a candidate (she didn't even have an incumbent advantage) and Ossoff ran not only a great campaign but messaged himself as best as he possibly could for the kind of reluctant Trump voters in this district. This is what RINO Tom and I have been saying all along: in order to win over these kind of voters in the sunbelt (notwithstanding districts that have changed primarily because of an influx of minorities or millennials), the Democrats are gonna have to moderate more on economics to bring the affluent college educated suburban whites into the fold of the Democratic Party. That's the price we're gonna have to pay to bring them in.
I don't agree. One striking thing is the money and national attention spent in SC 05 versus GA 06. There was next to no money spent in SC 05, no preparation, nothing, Yet, that district returned 48% Democratic. I think that the GOP spent money and nationalized the race to keep the college educated cohort Republican enough to win this race. They had to nationalize and polarize the election through advertisements and spending and national attention to keep it GOP by 4 points. This is a district that was Romney +23 in 2012 and shifted radically in 2016; and clearly has maintained that shift.
I think the GOP had a worse night in the long run. They learned that to maintain the House majority, they need to dial up the polarization to 11 and spend a lot more money while the Democrats can pick off sleeper seats with minimal investment. I think a lot of people are underestimating the dangers of the GOP strategy (they can't polarize a 50-50 country forever without the dam breaking).
We learned the GOP base needs money and national investments to come out whereas the Democratic base is going to storm out no matter what. That actually fits with what we know of the number of specials so far.
