WIN BY OSSOFF IN GEORGIA COULD SPUR DEMOCR ATS
to hold suburban districts that only now are becoming battlegrounds.
And Democrats, facing a restive base hungry for victory after disappointing losses in Montana and Kansas, are under pressure to show they can notch something more than a moral victory in the sort of affluent seat they will need in order to take back the House majority.
An outright win in Georgia would serve as validation of the party’s overall strategy. Democrats have been recruiting aggressively in Republican-leaning seats — including in Michigan, Illinois and New Jersey — and party officials expect a wave of new challengers to announce their candidacies after the start of the next fundraising quarter in July.
The stakes are highest for Republicans, who have held the district since the Carter administration without much of a challenge to speak of. Handel, the well-known former board chairwoman of the state’s most populous county, Fulton, and also a former Georgia secretary of state, is facing Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat and former congressional aide who does not even live in the district.
“It’s a race that we have to win,” said state Sen. Brandon Beach, a Republican whose district includes part of the terrain being fought on here.
Republican officials worry that if Ossoff wins, it would send a resounding statement about the intensity of the backlash to Trump, prompting incumbents to think twice about running for re-election, slowing fundraising and, most significantly, further imperiling their already-stalemated legislative agenda.
“It’s not just symbolic — we really can’t afford to lose any seats at this point,” said Rep. Tom Rooney, R-fla., noting that “the factions” among congressional Republicans make their majorities more tenuous in practice than they may seem on paper.
In a district that was once nobody’s idea of “swing,” the parties themselves have elevated the stakes. The two candidates and outside groups have now spent more than $51 million.
On the Democratic side, elected officials and party strategists say Ossoff’s campaign has already served as a galvanizing force, spurring small donors into action and focusing the attention of voters and activists on the battle for the House. The notion that Price’s once-safe seat could be in play, strategists said, has helped encourage Democrats in other conservative-leaning seats.
Should Ossoff win, it could spur another wave of Democratic candidates to run in challenging districts.
Citing Georgia as a model, Andy Kim, a former national security official in the Obama administration, said he is likely to enter the race against Rep. Tom Macarthur of New Jersey, who vaulted into the national spotlight as an architect of the House Republicans’ health care bill.
“We want that same energy,” Kim said. “We want people around the country to focus in and say: This is an opportunity for us to push back and hold Macarthur accountable for his actions.”
In Arizona, Randy Friese, a trauma surgeon turned state representative, said he has watched the Georgia race as he weighs a challenge to Sen. Jeff Flake. Friese, who said he is leaning toward running, noted that Ossoff’s message — casting him largely as a nonpartisan candidate — had resonated with both Democrats and independent voters.
“Voters need people who have the political courage to stand up for their values and not just bend to the will of the party,” said Friese, who entered politics after treating Rep. Gabrielle Giffords for a near-fatal gunshot wound in 2011.
Among the Democrats likely to announce campaigns in conservative-leaning districts, according to party strategists, are Matt Longjohn, a physician who is the YMCA’S national health officer, against Rep. Fred Upton of Michigan; Brendan Kelly, the St. Clair County, Ill., state’s attorney, against Rep. Mike Bost; and Nancy Soderberg, a former ambassador, against Rep. Ron Desantis of Florida. Elissa Slotkin, a former Defense Department official, is moving toward a campaign against Rep. Mike Bishop of Michigan.
All would be running in seats that tilt clearly toward the Republicans and where Democrats typically struggle to enlist strong candidates.
Democratic officials argue that even a razor-thin defeat for Ossoff should be taken as an encouraging sign, but the party is under pressure to win. House Democrats only reluctantly, and minimally, competed in special elections earlier in the year in Kansas and Montana. But they poured millions into this race, even as Ossoff largely ran from the party’s agenda and leadership.