Georgia race all about choosing sides
A politician I worked for down South used to tell the story of an elderly Georgia woman during the Civil Wa- — uh, make that “the War of Northern Aggression” — who saw Gen. William T. Sherman and his troops ride into town and rushed out at him, swinging her broom. Her neighbors pulled her away, one asking, “Why did you do that, mother? You know you can’t stop them.”
“I know,” the grandmother replied,” I just want ’ em to know whose side I’m on.”
And that, my dear Bostonians, is what’s happening today in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District: Voters showing whose side they’re on.
During the two years I did talk radio in Atlanta, I lived in GA6. If you had told me when I moved away from there a year ago that this longtime GOP stronghold would be a neck-andneck race today, I would have suggested you lay off the mint juleps for a spell.
But voters in this Atlanta suburb are casting ballots in a race today that’s too close to call. And it’s not about health care policy or abortion or deficit spending. It’s about Trump and taking sides.
To say Georgia’s 6th District is Republican is like saying Massachusetts is Democrat — except even the Bay State elects the occasional GOP governor. The last time these voters elected a Democrat to Congress, Richard Nixon was still president. This is Reagan/Gingrich/ Tom Price country. And yet a 30-year-old political novice who doesn’t even live in the district is within striking distance of an upset. Why?
It could be the money. Democrats have dumped tens of millions of dollars into Jon Ossoff’s campaign (a friend of mine in the Atlanta sports radio biz told me yesterday his station made its entire annual budget from the Ossoff campaign). Or it could be the relative weakness of the Republican nominee, Karen Handel, aka “the Martha Coakley of the Georgia GOP.”
But the money is only there because of the opportunity, and the Democrats’ opportunity comes straight from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.
“This is absolutely a referendum on Trump, whether Karen Handel wants it to be or not.” That’s the assessment of longtime Georgia politico Phil Kent, a Republican and the CEO of InsiderAdvantage.com. As one early voter told the Washington Examiner, “I would love for Jon to win and send a message to Trump ... I would love to stick it to him, actually.”
My friend Kyle Wingfield, who covers politics for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, disagrees somewhat: “This is only about Trump at the margins,” he told me. “That said, Trump’s missteps provided the opening, and now Democrats are showing what $30 million and a well-run campaign can accomplish in a fiscally conservative, socially moderate district.”
It’s also a well-educated district, with a higher percentage of adults with college degrees than any district in Massachusetts. This explains why Trump squeaked out such a narrow victory there last November (U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio carried the district — with my help — in the GOP primary). And it explains why Democrats are spending so much for so little practical effect. Picking up one seat in a heavily GOP house isn’t worth the money they’re spending. But it could be a template for similar, traditionally GOP seats in 2018.
The bad news for Democrats? There are almost no seats like it anywhere else in America. Only one other Republican, Virginia’s Barbara Comstock, represents one of the top 15 most educated districts in the U.S.
More bad news: It appears the GOP is likely to eke out a win. Kent points to analysis from the U.S. Elections Project showing that early voting by hardcore Republicans has exceeded that by core Democrats by about 20,000. In addition, a new poll by Opinion Savvy finds that 62 percent of those voting today plan to vote for Handel.
This doesn’t mean the race is over or that Ossoff can’t win. Everyone I spoke to in the district agreed that he has the passion and the momentum, thanks almost entirely to anti-Trump sentiment.
But the race has evolved (or perhaps “devolved”) into a traditional GOP vs. Dem campaign. Republicans have spent quite a bit of money on their own, much of it linking Ossoff to Nancy Pelosi. Their message: “Say ‘No’ To Pelosi’s ‘Yes Man.’ ” Pelosi is to Georgia Republicans what Trump is to Democrats — someone they love to vote against.
In the end, the slim GOP majority in the district is likely to be enough to carry the day. But either way, this election had nothing to do with picking a congressman and everything to do with picking sides.