National figures make closing arguments in Georgia race

CHAMBLEE, Ga. — Trying to stave off a major upset ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, two of President Donald Trump’s Cabinet officers returned to Atlanta’s traditionally conservative suburbs and urged Republican voters to maintain the GOP’s monopoly control in Washington.

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, a former two-term Georgia governor, took sharp aim at Republican Karen Handel’s opponent in Tuesday’s congressional runoff election, 30-year-old Democrat Jon Ossoff, who has raised more than $23 million from people around the country hoping for a victory that could turn the tide on Trump.

“This is a race for the heart and soul for America,” Perdue told Handel supporters, casting Ossoff as a puppet of national Democrats and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California.

“The leftists have gone and typecast and they’ve picked this young man -- charismatic, articulate -- and they’ve taught him a few Republican buzzwords,” Perdue said. “They think he can fool you. It’s not gonna happen.”

But it very well may, with polls showing a tossup in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, where Republicans usually coast.

Ossoff brought some political celebrity firepower of his own, campaigning Saturday with civil rights icon John Lewis, the Atlanta congressman from the neighboring 5th district.

“Let’s honor him ... and who all who sacrificed with him” by casting a ballot, Ossoff told his supporters at one stop.

Lewis called Ossoff “smart” and “good,” before embracing the young candidate who was born barely a month after Lewis was sworn in as a congressman. Lewis, whose criticism of Trump has drawn Twitter jabs from the president, did not mention the administration.

The candidates’ choices on the final weekend of campaigning reflect their expectations of a razor-thin margin that will turn as much on core partisans as on persuading moderates and independents.

The results will be seen as a measure of how voters feel about Republican leadership months into the Trump presidency. Trump barely won this well-educated, affluent district in November, despite previous Republican nominees here eclipsing 60 percent. Perdue defended Trump as “a true populist,” but acknowledged that even “some Republicans” are “turned off” by the president.

Health Secretary Tom Price, whose resignation to join Trump’s Cabinet prompted this special election, urged voters to have a “crazy turnout” on Handel’s behalf. He reminded his former constituents of the district’s GOP pedigree, electing eventual Speaker Newt Gingrich and future U.S. Sen. Johnny Isakson before sending Price to Washington for 12 years.

Handel made a similar appeal to honor the district’s “legacy.” She said voters “know me” from stints as secretary of state and commission chairman of Georgia’s most populous county.

Ossoff and Handel insist their matchup — recognized as the most expensive House race in U.S. history because of money from outside the district — is not about or the dynamics on Capitol Hill. But Perdue flatly disputed them, calling the election “a harbinger of national politics” as Handel looked on.