OSSOFF v HANDEL

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/20/15831624/georgia-special-election-jon-ossoff-karen-handel-live-updates

I may have said this on the board before but I think Ossoff sucks as a candidate. The lesson Dems keep saying they're going to learn is that you have to convince people to vote FOR you and not AGAINST the other guy (or in this case, bigoted lady). Aside from being young though I don't see anything from Ossoff that convinces me he's actually going to inspire enough people to go stand in line and mark his name on a ballot. Hope to God I'm wrong though because this would be a huge victory if he can pull it off.

lol

https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/BFVmYaQ5Km43Qw7_smUPiDCJXhg=/800x0/filters:no_upscale()/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8713365/TrumpTwetHandle.png

don't know much about Ossoff but it would be really depressing if he lost

listened to ossoff on NPR this morning, just not compelling, stuff about 'cutting spending and balancing budgets', i barely remember anything else he said because it was so boilerplate politican. he'll prob lose

my totally off-the-wall prediction is that the guy in South Carolina, while also losing, does better relative to expectations than Ossoff.

can't wait to see how well GOP voter suppression techniques work this time around

She doesn't believe in a livable wage though.

I may have said this on the board before but I think Ossoff sucks as a candidate. The lesson Dems keep saying they're going to learn is that you have to convince people to vote FOR you and not AGAINST the other guy (or in this case, bigoted lady). Aside from being young though I don't see anything from Ossoff that convinces me he's actually going to inspire enough people to go stand in line and mark his name on a ballot. Hope to God I'm wrong though because this would be a huge victory if he can pull it off.

― evol j, 20. juni 2017 14:43 (thirty-seven minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

Ossoff isn't very inspiring, which is exactly why it would be such a good sign if he wins. But if he loses, the left can use that as a great argument for exactly what you're saying. Honestly, tonight is a win-win :)

lol

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCufWcZXgAQNl0g.jpg

I suppose I understand the argument that in a GOP-dominated district a Dem candidate has to be wussier, but we should stop wooing Republican voters with diluted Republicanism and offer them liberalism. If the candidate loses anyway, at least we'll know the half life of liberalism in GOP districts.

god is that fundraising email real? yes, let's try hysterically scolding people into giving us more money.

Ossoff has raised five or six times more money than Handel so if he loses it's on him.

and what will money buy at this point – gas to drive people to polling stations?

my family & lots of friends' families who live there say that the Dem ground operation is very strong, people are showing up to drive to the polls all elderly people who have indicated they'll vote for Ossoff (never mind that to live in that area you'd be hard pressed to avoid being able to drive)

the GOP will win

It's 50-50. But it's a GOP district, so they SHOULD win. The Dems will overperform :)

and Trump will boast on Twitter about it the entire morning, because the world has absolutely no consequences for him

as it should be, because he was born into serious family money, even though 'we're a free country, liberty / justice for all'

Not to set the bar too high, but I feel if a moderate dem candidate with ample funding and some sense of momentum can't beat a conservative republican in a moderate and well educated republican district, with Trump at his lowest (so far) in the polls, we're all doomed. Because if they can't flip this seat, which is also stuffed with symbolic value, that means a) they probably can't flip any republican district and b) even moderate well educated republicans still support Trump. All of my hopes lie with the local suburban mom gotv effort, because they seem to be driving this train.

exactly - Handel winning this sends a pretty strong message that Trump's blatant corruption and idiocy ultimately won't affect them. Winners win, losers lose, etc etc

Not to set the bar too high, but I feel if a moderate dem candidate with ample funding and some sense of momentum can't beat a conservative republican in a moderate and well educated republican district, with Trump at his lowest (so far) in the polls, we're all doomed.

eh not really – we haven't seen peak Trump meltdown yet. Give it another few months if we're still alive.

local elections are normally responsive to local issues more than national issues (an exception: the recent legislative election in France), I don't think things have gotten so obviously bad in the USA that this election will be an exception. I.e what Alfred said

Tom Price won the seat by 23% last November. And GOP money is pouring in as well.

a lot of attention will be paid to this congressional race. if this guy can't beat paul ryan we're def fucked

Randy Bryce is running against @SpeakerRyan in 2018. He was genetically engineered from Bruce Springsteen songs. pic.twitter.com/XD9bOEeOkl

— Anthony Breznican (@Breznican) June 20, 2017

Claiming an Ossoff loss as any sort of win, for any reasons - look at the turnout! we beat expectations! - is foolish. It's not better than pointing to the looming demographic bomb as proof of the GOP demise. People have been saying that for decades, and America just elected not just the worst president ever but one of the worst people ever.

posted this in the dem direction thread, maybe it's more appropriate here:

https://www.thenation.com/article/women-are-leading-the-charge-in-georgias-sixth-congressional-district/

Because if they can't flip this seat, which is also stuffed with symbolic value, that means a) they probably can't flip any republican district

Don't agree. This is a strongly Republican seat. If Handel wins by 2% and the GOP concludes "everyone's on board with our agenda" they're fools.

if this guy can't beat paul ryan we're def fucked

I like the ad too but the Bryce doesn't come off as a natural speaker. This is his third time running for office; he got crushed in a Democratic primary in 2012 and he got crushed by his Republican opponent for a state senate seat in 2014. Ryan's district isn't that Republican but he's a long-time incumbent, he'll have all the money he needs, and he's really good at running for office. I think WI-7 and WI-8 are both more flippable (by the right candidate.)

Again, I don't know! We're only six months into a Trump administration. That the race is this close speaks to changing demographics and the unpopularity of the man in the Oval Office, but, again, it's only been six months. A GOP win wouldn't shatter me; it took this much money to win a race that the party handily won eight months ago?

xpost "Let's trade places. Paul Ryan, you can work the iron, and I will go to DC." That's a great ad.

Dems are definitely going for a win, so a loss wouldn't be a win... But if Handel wins by a point or so, it doesn't mean that everyone is doomed. It's still a good sign for 2018.

Claiming an Ossoff loss as any sort of win, for any reasons - look at the turnout! we beat expectations! - is foolish.

I think it's just as foolish to interpret "Handel wins by 1%" and "Ossoff wins by 1%" as telling drastically different stories about the political landscape.

good god, sorry to bring this up again but these emails are outrageous. political 'consultants' are poison

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCvb81fV0AA2FrU.jpg:large

what's depressing is they wouldn't still be sending these unless they worked

xpost It's not about trends, it's about electing democrats to office! When do the democrats just to win on the ground, and not just some hypothetical election reflecting shifting political landscapes, changing demographics and redrawn districts? 1%, 5%, who the fuck cares? It's not like squeaking into office gets you less of a vote on the floor.

We're only six months into a Trump administration.

What more are Trump supporters waiting for? To see if he actually helps push through a health bill that will hurt millions? Cut taxes that will hurt millions? If the intent isn't bad enough, if everything he's said or done for almost two years isn't bad enough, then nothing is. Six months? When is a good cut off? Six years? Because unless the dems manage to take back the house in 2018, I suspect that's what we're going to get, because it shows GOP voters will literally put up with anything.

"get to win," not "just to win."

Like, reducing GOP win margins is a good start, but until they start overtaking them, by however much, it's kind of meaningless.

those emails, what the fuck

I've been getting them, too, and they are so smug and smarmy. They might as well say "because of you we're barely tied, you asshole, so give me more money!!!!"

the CRM they're using apparently doesn't fix capitalization errors in people's names either

What more are Trump supporters waiting for? To see if he actually helps push through a health bill that will hurt millions? Cut taxes that will hurt millions? If the intent isn't bad enough, if everything he's said or done for almost two years isn't bad enough, then nothing is. Six months? When is a good cut off? Six years? Because unless the dems manage to take back the house in 2018, I suspect that's what we're going to get, because it shows GOP voters will literally put up with anything.

Trump voters are mostly GOP voters and they are incorrigible.

Isn't this like the third or fourth post-inauguration "referendum on Trumpism" bellwether election? Hard to see through the hype.

When do the democrats just to win on the ground, and not just some hypothetical election reflecting shifting political landscapes, changing demographics and redrawn districts?

2018 :)

xp yeah, but this one is by far the closest in polling and the one that both parties are pouring the most resources into

Like,2018 is the one that matters, all these special elections don't really matter, they won't change the balance in the house, they won't do a thing, really. And they've all been in solidly red districts. 2018 is when it matters.

I know we've gone over this, but how many house seats can the Dems likely flip? Like, in places that are not "solidly red?"

Fred get real. Every seat counts. It's impossible to know what happens in 2018, what'll be important, what bill will need just two votes to get over the line.

Even without flipping something as red as Georgia 6th, it could well be enough to flip the house.

When do the democrats just to win on the ground, and not just some hypothetical election reflecting shifting political landscapes, changing demographics and redrawn districts?

When there are elections being held in districts that aren't 65% Republican, like the state legislative seats Dems have already flipped in New Hampshire and New York. And if you don't think the long effortful close-to-the-ground process of changing the balance in state legislatures isn't important, you haven't been paying attention to what the Republicans have been doing for the past 30 years.

please Tweet that to progressives, k3vin

K3vin K otm

*finishes drink*

k3vin is correct, I'm not gonna spend any more time thinking about this race

When presidents choose legislators for their Cabinet, they go to safe seats – can't stress this point enough.

so i think i saw (on twitter?) that there weren't any Ossoff commercials tying Handel to Trump? p weird if true...

meanwhile the GOP ties Ossoff to Islamic terrorism and the Scalise shooting. maybe something to think about if you're waging a referendum on <blank> campaign, Dems.

Dems the breaks!

so i think i saw (on twitter?) that there weren't any Ossoff commercials tying Handel to Trump? p weird if true...

There were plenty made by pacs and the DCCC, but all of his were very policy-centric and positive.

don't want to alienate anyone who voted for His Orangeness! they are precious snowflakes that can't handle guilt or regret

ah ok that makes sense. no TV so my exposure to the airwaves war was mostly in bars with the sound muted.

She called Ossoff "a San Francisco Democrat," which she would've called any opponent, so hey go authentic and left and see what happens.

guys a 30-year old jewish kid who just got his MA four years ago almost won a republican district so safe it was vacated for a cabinet position. time to panic!

can you even read

an 18-point swing from R to D in 7 months in a district that hasn't voted democrat since 1970 is a troubling data point, but not for the democRAT party

becomes a negative swing bcz Ossoff failed to use the winning message that Handel will be Trump's secret wetnurse.

his handler?

an 18-point swing from R to D in 7 months in a district that hasn't voted democrat since 1970 is a troubling data point, but not for the democRAT party

― reggie (qualmsley), Wednesday, June 21, 2017 4:14 PM (twenty-five minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

the clinton-trump margin was closer than this special election. that's a more valid comparator since the election was more or less a referendum on trump. popular incumbents like tom price often outperform the national races so it's not really fair to compare to that result

No, because the Clinton/Trump election was between Clinton and Trump, and Trump massively underperformed in this district versus its party ID/history, precisely because they wanted a Jeb!-type Republican and Trump being on the ballot was off-putting. No reason to assume that discomfort holds for a Congressional race - they still want Jeb!-type Republicans and conveniently enough, one was running. Is there any evidence that voters approached this as a "referendum on Trump?" Without that assumption, comparison to previous races for the same seat seems just common-sensical.

CLF the GOP SuperPac that crushed Ossoff is run in part by a Saudi lobbyist, not that Ossoff ever let voters know https://t.co/EcBMFcXQ8z

— Lee Fang (@lhfang) June 21, 2017

Like, just because the popular incumbent leaves doesn't mean the district gets reset to 50/50 or something. Looking at the races he won, and the fact that he *was* a popular incumbent, can tell us things about the district. Things like, "it's full of fucking Republicans."

it's been decades since a democrat has gotten more than 38% of the vote in GA 6. ossoff beat that by 10%

that's a more valid comparator since the election was more or less a referendum on trump

how true is this? is Handel a full-on red hatter or is she more a "normal" Republican? feel like the only true referendum on Trump is gonna come in 2020. most GOP voters are prepared to shake him of as an aberration when it's all said and done.

what people choose to compare ossoff's performance to seems to be strongly correlated with how they think the democrats should approach 2018

There is no difference between a "normal" Republican and a Trump Republican.

in the eyes of self-identified "reasonable" Republicans there is

Hate to find people getting complacent and thinking that it was bound to go the D way since the Rs are screwing things up so badly. Since low voter turn out contributed so heavily to November.
How was voter turn out in Georgia?
I saw something talking about 43% or thereabouts but that could have been April's election.

in the eyes of self-identified "reasonable" Republicans there is

― frogbs, Wednesday, June 21, 2017

which is why the message in 2018, "These people want your grandpa to die in six years when they're out of office."

? Turnout was huge for a special election.

xp

There is no difference between a "normal" Republican and a Trump Republican.

― the Rain Man of nationalism. (Alfred, Lord Sotosyn), Wednesday, June 21, 2017 5:50 PM Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

I agree generally, in the sense of "'normal' Republicans basically decided Trump was not a deal-breaker so fuck them all, they all own this racist shitbag nightmare." But if we're trying to understand why this district votes the way it does, and, from there, what this election might portend for the wider picture, understanding what motivates Republicans in this district might be relevant.

At a certain point though what matters is, this district is full of Republicans and is thus not the kind of district the Democrats have to win if they're aiming to flip the house in 2018. It's a classic safe red seat - I cannot imagine anybody, before this campaign started, picking it even in like a top fifty of interesting, up-for-grabs races - and so the most interesting takeaway for me is that Ossoff did as well as he did.

I think most would say top fifty. The Clinton/Trump-margin was remarkably close, so something is happening.

Democratic candidates in these elections have won an average of 68 percent of the votes Hillary Clinton won in their districts, while Republican candidates have won an average of 54 percent of Trump's votes. That's an enthusiasm gap that big enough to gravely imperil the Republican majority next November.

http://cookpolitical.com/story/10391

"Remarkably close" only versus how that district has voted in Presidential elections before - which I agree is not insignificant! But a really sudden shift like that to me does not say "this district is changing, maybe it's not stuck being a solid red district" but "this district is still Republicans but had a problem with the specific candidate on the ticket." Which, along with the evidence from last night, does not suggest that they are primed to flip to a Democrat representing them in Congress.

This 538 chart is probably a good place to start:

https://espnfivethirtyeight.files.wordpress.com/2017/04/enten-special-11.png?quality=90&strip=info&w=575&ssl=1

Counting up the little boxes, okay, Georgia 6 is in the top 48 by this metric. So maybe I should have said "top forty?" I think the point stands - this isn't a case of a district absolutely primed for a pickup, where a failure to pick it up indicates everything is wrong. And again, it's only that far to the right on the chart because of that dramatic 2016 swing, so in a way the method is IMHO flawed as it may overemphasize Jeb!-type districts which may not, depending on your views, be the places most ripe for Dems in 2018.

There are other metrics you could bring in to consider the meaningfulness of that 2016 vote - like, how did all districts behave in that election? I haven't found a good chart that brings it all together and is sortable and indicates which party held the seat in Congress, but for example, there are twenty-three districts that elected Republican representatives (all incumbents) in 2016 while choosing Clinton for President, sometimes by huge margins - which is more striking than the one-point Trump victory in Georgia 6. If a special election happens in one of those and the Dems don't win then yeah there is something seriously seriously wrong.

and yes, qualmsey's link is also super helpful

greg palast also claims 40,000 ballots were "lost"

Ufot told me, "We submitted 86,419 voter registration forms. There are 46,000 of the folks that we've registered who have made it, and 40,000 of them are missing."

http://www.truth-out.org/opinion/item/41009-greg-palast-jim-crow-scam-threatens-to-tip-georgia-s-ossoff-handel-race

dogg you gotta find some better sources to link to than palmerreport.com and truth-out.org

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

hey now, i don't link to palmer report (however much i might like to pretend is true)

No, because the Clinton/Trump election was between Clinton and Trump, and Trump massively underperformed in this district versus its party ID/history, precisely because they wanted a Jeb!-type Republican and Trump being on the ballot was off-putting. No reason to assume that discomfort holds for a Congressional race - they still want Jeb!-type Republicans and conveniently enough, one was running. Is there any evidence that voters approached this as a "referendum on Trump?" Without that assumption, comparison to previous races for the same seat seems just common-sensical.

― ﴿→ ☺ (Doctor Casino), Wednesday, June 21, 2017 4:49 PM (four hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

this doesn't really scan to me, and it seems like the smart election people worth paying attention to agree with me

although i haven't checked with sam wang, maybe bayes agrees with you lol

i mean you cannot compare an election between two virtual unknowns to one involving a longtime, popular incumbent. that to me seems much more common sensical

comparing to trump/hillary, i mean

and by smart election people i basically mean nate silver. i think if you trust a word any of these other jokers have to say after what we saw with the general election then i've got some swampland to sell you

what does Michael Moore say then?

Silver agrees with me though!

natesilver: Democrats have been competitive in four substantially red districts. We can debate what “red” means, because the districts are red in different ways. But they’re the sort of results you’d expect in an election where the House was in play. Heck, some of them are even consistent with the sort of results you’d expect in a massive wave election. (...)

micah: Wait a second, Nate. This was a red district, but it was also an eminently winnable race for Democrats. (...) They lost by 4 percentage points in a district Hillary Clinton lost by 1.5 points. I know other non-Trump Republicans have done better there, but if Democrats are hoping to ride dissatisfaction with Trump to the House majority, shouldn’t they be concerned they couldn’t do that in a district we know already doesn’t love Trump?

natesilver: Was Trump on the ballot last night? No. When we modeled the House in 2010, we used a combination of the presidential results in the last two presidential elections, plus the previous House result, plus a bunch of other factors.

Using the last presidential race is just a shorthand that works fine in most cases, but wasn’t particularly good here. And we have a great example of that, given what happened in South Carolina, which was literally the opposite of Georgia in many respects: historically a swingy district that went very pro-Trump. Democrats did quite well there.

(...) Certainly, we can debate the strategy in individual races. But basically it’s like if an obscure college football team goes and plays against Ohio State at Ohio Stadium, and loses 30-27 when they were big underdogs going in. It’s disappointing for them, but, at the same time, an indication that the team has bright things in its future and that Ohio State has a lot to worry about. (...) The official FiveThirtyEight pre-election spin was that Georgia 6 mattered more in perception than in reality. Which I think I still agree with. (...)

micah: Hmmm. I think Georgia 6 suggests that marginal Trump voters (whom we’ve dubbed Reluctant Trump voters) — i.e., people who voted for him but had an unfavorable view of him — are still generally with the GOP. That’s backed up by our survey data too. (...)

natesilver: But Micah, the relevant factor is that they were marginal Trump Republicans. If you had a district where you had marginal Trump independents or Democrats — you had a few of those in South Carolina 5 — the outcome might have been different.

(emphasis added)

huh, well i'm on micah's side then. on my phone now but silver's article from today seemed to show that ossoff (barely) underperformed expectations

I would like to know if Nate Silver thinks the Rockies and Diamondbacks are for real

acting like only if Ossoff was a candidate more suited to the preferences of people who would never in their lives choose to live in any part of a district like GA-6, i.e. pretty much all of ILX, then he could have won, is profoundly stupid and misses the point completely imo

So tired of the liberal half of the country looking for every opportunity to kick itself for not being good enough to ever deserve winning.

― El Tomboto

not everybody gets to live exactly where they choose!

I have my own spaceship

i was just going to steal andy griffith's

Ahem, that spaceship's mine, per the will