Democrats Seek ‘Scott Brown Moment’ in Red Georgia District

Progressive rage over the 2016 election, an 18-candidate scramble, and President Donald Trump’s underperformance in a suburban Georgia district have Democrats believing they can flip a seat that has been in GOP hands since Jimmy Carter’s administration.

Ordinarily, the 6th Congressional District would attract little attention outside of Georgia. The Cook Political Report rates it as a Republican +12 district, and Democrats have not closely contested it since 1990, when then-Rep. Newt Gingrich defeated Democrat David Worley by just 978 votes.

“When John Lewis says someone is worth backing, that’s a signal progressives everywhere have to take seriously. In Ossoff’s case, wow, has that meant an insane amount of money.”

Tom Price, whose selection as health and human services secretary triggered the special election, never faced a tough race and cruised to re-election in November with 61.7 percent of the vote. But Trump beat Democrat Hillary Clinton here by only a little more than 1 percentage point.

Winning the district would be a coup for Democrats looking for evidence of a political comeback after a fall that saw the party lose control of both houses of Congress, nearly 1,000 state legislative seats, and the White House.

It could be the Democratic equivalent of Republican Scott Brown’s January 2010 victory in a special election to replace liberal icon Ted Kennedy as a senator from deep-blue Massachusetts. That win foreshadowed a GOP wave election 10 months later that brought the GOP back to power in the House of Representatives.

Newly minted Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez sees a golden opportunity.

“We have got opportunities right here in Atlanta, where I sit today, Congressional 6, which is Cobb County,” he told CNN last month. “We’re going to take the fight there.”

Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old documentary filmmaker who worked as a an aide to Rep. Hank Johnson (D-Ga.), came in first in a recent poll, fueling hopes on the Left that the seat can be turned. He has the backing of Johnson and Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), as well as the Daily Kos, a left-wing blog that reportedly helped him raise more than $1 million.

“When John Lewis says someone is worth backing, that’s a signal progressives everywhere have to take seriously,” Daily Kos Political Director David Nir told The Daily Beast. “In Ossoff’s case, wow, has that meant an insane amount of money.”

In a sign of how invested progressives are in the contest, the political action committee End Citizens United has pledged to activate a donor base of 40,000 Atlanta-area residents to support Ossoff.

The 6th District covers the northern part of Fulton County outside Atlanta and takes in parts of eastern Cobb County and northern DeKalb County. Voters will winnow the field to two on April 18. Those candidates will face off in June.

Campaign Leadership Fund, a pro-Republican super PAC, is sufficiently concerned about Ossoff that it announced this month it is dropping $1.1 million into the race on negative ads. One spot features video of Ossoff in college yukking it up with his friends, pretending to be Han Solo and drinking from a keg.

[lz_third_party align=center includes=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztJlZ3Ndbw4″]

The ad clearly aims to undercut the young filmmaker’s claim to be prepared for Congress. But just in case there is any doubt, the it ends with the tagline, “Jon Ossoff: Not honest. Not serious. Not ready.”

Corry Bliss, the super PAC’s executive director, said in a statement that Ossoff is deceiving voters and noted reports that the candidate lives outside the district. He also teased more embarrassing ads.

“It is sad that the hope of the Democratic Party rests on a 30-year-old frat boy who has spent his adult life living outside of Georgia’s 6th District playing dress-up with his drinking buddies,” Bliss said in the statement.

GOP Front-Runner Touts Record
Former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, the Republican front-runner, shows little interest in bashing Ossoff or her Republican competitors. Instead, she focused during an interview with LifeZette on her own record and vision to fix the nation’s big problems. She touted her successful efforts to close a $100 million budget shortfall as chairwoman of the Fulton County Commission in 2004, and endorsements from 31 elected officials.

[lz_table title=”Georgia 6th District Scramble” source=”Clout Research”]Leading contenders in special election
|Candidate,Share of Vote
Jon Ossoff (D),31.7%
Karen Handel (R),24.9%
Bob Gray (R),10.6%
Judson Hill (R),9.2%
Dan Moody (R),2%
Bruce LeVell (R),1.2%
Someone else,2.8%
Not Sure,17.6%
|
Clout Research poll taken Feb. 17-18.
[/lz_table]

As secretary of state, she said, she implemented a photo identification law while working to make sure every eligible voter had proper ID. Handel said she intends to focus on repealing the Affordable Care Act, reforming the tax code and securing America’s borders.

“I’m just gonna to focus on my race and what I can offer to the people of the 6th District,” Handel said. “As I look at this, Republicans, we’ve had eight years to talk about all the things that we want to do. Now is out opportunity and our obligation to deliver … I am the one candidate in this race who has a solid track record of delivering on her commitments time and time again.”

In addition to leading all Republicans in the Clout Research survey, she also is the only candidate in the field who has won statewide office.

Republican Bob Gray, who finished third in the poll, said he believes Democratic dreams of capturing the district are unrealistic. A business executive, Gray compared himself to David Perdue, a businessman who won the 2014 GOP U.S. Senate primary against Handel and others and went on to win the general election.

“I am the one candidate in this race who has a solid track record of delivering on her commitments time and time again.”

“People are just tired of the insiders and the politicians,” he said. “People do want experience, but it’s a different kind of experience.”

Other Republican contenders include former state Sens. Dan Moody and Judson Hill, and Bruce LeVell, who headed Trump’s national diversity coalition.

For his part, Ossoff seems eager to turn the race into a referendum on Trump.

“I think people are embarrassed by him,” he told The Washington Post. “People are concerned he’s dishonest and not competent.”

Republicans and independent observers remain skeptical, however.

“We’re not worried at all,” said Maddie Anderson, a spokeswoman for the National Republican Campaign Committee. “The underperformance by Trump is the only reason Democrats think they can win here. Basically, they’re using the same failed playbook from the last election, which is making it about the top of the ticket.”

Anderson attributed the narrow gap between Trump and Clinton in the district to the fact that the GOP nominee appealed to different kinds of voters. But she added that the district has not changed overnight.

Upset Would Be ‘Stunning’
M.V. Hood III, director of the University of Georgia’s Survey Research Center, agreed. He said there are signs of Democrats making inroads in the suburbs. Clinton, for instance, became the first Democratic presidential candidate since 1980 to win Cobb County and the first since 1976 to carry Gwinnett County — which is not in the district but is in the Atlanta suburbs.

But Hood said the 6th District remains Republican-leaning. He added that novice candidates like Ossoff rarely win congressional races.

Hood acknowledged that anger at Trump has the Left more energized that normal.

“That’s completely different from saying this district is energized,” he said. “I’m not willing to go that far.”

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Charles Bullock, a political science professor at the University of Georgia, said an upset would be “stunning.” He said it is risky for Democrats to make the election about Trump when the final voting is still three months away.

“Who knows what Donald Trump will have done by then,” he said. “He could be walking on water by then, or he could be sunk.”

Julianne Thompson, a Republican strategist and co-chairwoman of the Atlanta Tea Party, said it will not work to make the election about Trump.

“That’s going to backfire,” she said. “It certainly backfired for them in 2016.”

Thompson said she believes two Republicans will make it into the runoff. She said the top Republican campaigns are building sophisticated door-knocking efforts and other efforts that will be crucial in a low-turnout special election, but she warned against overconfidence.

“I don’t see the same sort of grassroots ground game … from the Democrats,” she said. “I do not think any of the Republican candidates in the race need to take it for granted that they’re going to win, because the Democrats are going to work hard.”