Upstart Dem leads early returns in Georgia congressional race
DUNWOODY, Ga.—An upstart Democrat leads a special election in a conservative Georgia congressional district as he bids for a major upset, but his margin is narrowing.
After the Tuesday evening poll closings, votes were being counted in the metro Atlanta race in which Democrat Jon Ossoff sought to parlay opposition to President Donald Trump into a victory that would rebuke the White House and embolden Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
With early voting totals and about a third of precincts counted, Ossoff was above the majority threshold required to win an 18-candidate primary. But tens of thousands of votes have yet to be counted in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District that stretches across the northern suburbs of Atlanta, and Ossoff’s lead had already started to narrow as more precincts reported.
Republicans nationally and in Georgia acknowledged before polls opened that Ossoff would top the field Tuesday. An entire slate— Republicans, Democrats and independents—appeared on one primary ballot.
The question was whether Ossoff would command a majority to claim the seat outright. If not, he would face the top Republican vote-getter in a June 20 runoff. The winner will succeed Tom Price, who resigned to become Trump’s health secretary.
Trump took to Twitter urging Republicans to cast ballots late Tuesday. He even mocked Ossoff’s choice of residence—outside the district.
“Just learned that Jon Ossoff, who is running for Congress in Georgia, doesn’t even live in the district. Republicans, get out and vote!” the president wrote.
The contest is testing both parties’ strategies for the upcoming national election cycle. Democrats are expected to have a better shot at snagging the typically Republican seat than they did in last week’s closer-than-expected GOP victory in a Kansas special House election.
Trump did not perform as well as other Republicans last November in the Georgia district, an affluent, well-educated swath filled with the kind of voters Democrats need if they hope to reclaim a House majority next year.
Ossoff would be a “disaster” in Congress, Trump declared earlier Tuesday on social media, a day after he blasted the “super liberal” Democrat as a champion of criminals, higher taxes and unchecked immigration.
Despite Trump’s Twitter barrage, the White House insisted the race isn’t about the president.