Don't Do It, Jon, Or If You Do It, Do It Better

Photo: Dustin Chambers, Ossoff for Congress

Maybe you'll recall Georgia insurgent Democrat Jon Ossoff who ran the most expensive US House election ever (up to that time) for the 6th Congressional District seat in 2017. We gave him space here in March 2017. It was a special election for a vacant seat and the first of what would become a series of special elections in which Democrats won what should have been very Red seats. But Ossoff ended up losing to Republican Karen Handel by a fairly narrow margin. Karen Handel went on to lose her so recently gained seat to Democrat Lucy McBath in November 2018.

Maybe there was a lesson in that: Lucy McBath was a bold progressive, making gun control her signal issue. Jon Ossoff had, by contrast, run a "Republican lite" campaign in 2017. Said a decidedly more-progressive-observer-than-Ossoff, “He didn’t have a core progressive message and that ultimately is why he lost. The Democratic party could spend $100m and he would still lose. Because he didn’t stand for anything."

Democrats have empty suits the same as Republicans.

Now news reaches us this morning that Ossoff is seriously considering a run for the Georgia Senate seat that Johnny Isakson is resigning from.

Oof. What went wrong in 2017 for Ossoff might just as likely go wrong in 2020, but on a bigger scale.

New Hope in the US House: Lucy McBath from Georgia

The can't-get-past-the-Civil-War South fades a little more every year. A black woman will now represent the 6th Congressional District of Georgia.

Not only that. She's a pro-gun-control black woman. Lucy McBath lost her son to gun violence in 2012 because he was playing his music too loudly and "took an attitude." White man shot him. Because the music was too loud. On Tuesday, Lucy McBath won the 6th (admittedly by a thin margin, 50.5%), the very seat in Congress that Newt Gingrich once used to step up on and take a leap into the nation's bloodstream. Lucy McBath.

“Six years ago I went from a Marietta mom to a mother on a mission,” she said.

No mean feat, taking the 6th. It's majority Republican overall (+2 aggregate margin), with Cobb County really Republican. According to them-what-count numbers (FiveThirtyEight), "a Democrat would be expected to lose Georgia 6 by 9.5 percentage points in a neutral national environment (one in which the two parties fought to a tie nationally)."

Some of us thought a Democrat was going to turn the Georgia 6th blue on June 20th, 2017, in the special election that Democrat Jon Ossoff ran in and became a phenomenal fundraising machine but couldn't close the deal. Ossoff got national star attention as part of a building "blue wave," and he got damn close -- 48%. How McBath did it better possibly reflects the Trump Fatigue among suburban Republican women. (Just spit-balling here.)

Have to feel a little sympathy for incumbent Republican Karen Handel, who hasn't served in office but a scant year, and who has a history of close ones that she's usually lost. She lost a Senate bid in 2014, coming in third in a Republican jungle primary. In 2010, she had beaten Nathan Deal in the first round of the Republican jungle primary for Governor but lost to him in the second round by .04 percent of the vote.

But wait, there's another potential Democratic flip in Georgia!

Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux in the 7th District -- Bourdeaux trailed the Republican incumbent by nearly 3,000 votes Wednesday morning. After mail-in absentee ballots got counted, Bourdeaux trailed Woodall by only 890 votes. In Gwinnett County, the heart of the district, there are also 2,400 provisional ballots to be counted. Historically, around 90 percent of the county's provisional ballots are accepted, according to the Gwinnett Elections Director. Provisional ballots tend to be overwhelmingly Democratic votes.

(SOUR NOTE: New voter ID laws in Georgia under Secretary of State Brian Kemp require provisional voters to go in and present identification to a local office.)

Bourdeaux had good company on Tuesday. She was running on the same ticket with seven Democrats who flipped seats in the Gwinnett legislative delegation — five in the Georgia House of Representatives and two in the state Senate.

The election is supposed to be certified next week.

How Can You Tell When They're Nervous? They Sweat Money

Republicans approve of fear as good politics -- caravans of illegals looking to spread a plague of leprosy, for just one example -- so let's talk fear with one week to go. Republican fear. Oh, they're not actually afraid of brown-skinned plague-bearers. That's just a pose (or else they're as gullible as a Florida bomb maker or a synagogue murderer). What they're really afraid of right now is losing big-time.

Watching the scrambles of Republican PAC money in Washington -- now that's a study in fear.

congressional seats needed for Dems to take the House ... 23
*congressional seats held by Rs in districts won by Clinton in 2016 ... 25
deep red seats that now look flippable to blue ... ??  

Guesses vary, go as high as 70 or more. Predictions are always fantasies.

But seriously, folks, literally dozens of "comer" Democrats are running in red districts from Maine to Washington state who could overturn the tables of the money-changers, good D candidates running exceptional campaigns in deep red districts. They're muddying predictions because they're playing for keeps and playing well in districts no one thought competitive.

Republican disbelievers in a blue wave fall back on recent history: Those deep red districts aren't really flippable because Trump's base is fired up, and it's the Democrats who're an angry, impotent mob, and Congressional districts just don't change hands that much. Weren't they paying attention during all those 2017 and early 2018 special elections (save one, below) in which longtime Republican incumbents went down -- or ancient Republican state and Federal seats changed hands, often decisively, like an ice-water slap? Don't they remember that?

So news reaches us here this morning that the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) is rushing quick aid to a number of Republican candidates (both incumbents and newcomers) running in red districts that Trump took in 2016 by anywhere from 7 to 20+ points ... because of impressive Democrats running stronger than anyone thought possible.

Partial list of those in-trouble Rs (and their D challengers, who are pictured):

Lucy McBath

Karen Handel --first-term Republican incumbent. You may recall how Handel won her seat in a special 2017 election against young, attractive Democratic opponent Jon Ossoff. If you recall that, you'll also recall our getting excited about Ossoff, who popped onto the national radar well funded and staffed by professionals. But Ossoff lost that special election to Handel for apparently being too much the outsider, a liberal pimp. Instead of a Northern carpetbagger like Ossoff, this year the Democrats of the 6th District of Georgia picked Lucy McBath. She's very much the insider. Also black, young, and an avowed proponent of gun control. They're afraid of McBath in Georgia (let alone D.C.) and are pumping up Handel. With Stacey Abrams at the top of the Georgia ticket, McBath and Abrams would mutually benefit from voter enthusiasm if they can overcome the voter suppression.

Abigail Spanberger

Dave Brat -- in Virginia's 7th District. He's the brat who beat powerful incumbent Republican big-wig Eric Cantor in 2014. He's in trouble. Democrat Abigail Spanberger, a former CIA officer, has come on strong. A poll by the Wason Center for Public Policy at Christopher Newport University very recently put Spanberger over Brat, 46 - 45. NRCC is pouring money in for attack ads on TV.

Leslie Cockburn

Denver Riggleman -- in Virginia's 5th District. Riggleman is running for the seat left open by retiring Republican Tom Garrett, who announced he had an alcohol problem, and the high he got from being powerful wasn't helping. Background on Garrett here. Democrat Leslie Cockburn won the primary and has been a credible candidate in a sprawling rural district that includes the university town of Charlottesville. We wrote extensively about Cockburn way back in May.

Joe Cunningham

Katie Arrington -- in South Carolina's 1st District, which includes Charleston. Arrington is Trump-blessed (he laid his holy hands on Arrington's noggin in the Republican primary after incumbent Republican adulterer Mark Sanford dared to criticize the president out loud). According to Sullivan and Weigel, "Katie Arrington has had trouble putting away her Democratic opponent, Joe Cunningham," in a district both Trump and Mark Sanford won easily. I've written admiringly of Cunningham more than once. He looks like a winner to me.

Amy McGrath

Garland "Andy" Barr -- in Kentucky's 6th. Incumbent Barr is seriously endangered by former fighter pilot Amy McGrath, who's been a favorite of mine all year. Barr is getting big TV money and consultants to try to knock those wings off McGrath. Trump carried the 6th District by 13 points. House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) is flying in to campaign for Barr -- curious choice, since Ryan himself is a perfect symbol of Republican defeatism in this cycle -- Ryan retired rather than face IronStache.













* NRCC and Republican super-PACS have been pulling support for some incumbents considered too far gone to save -- throwing them to the wolves.