Jon Ossoff, a Democrat, is facing a crowded field of Republicans in a race to win a special election for the 6th Congressional District of Georgia, the seat held by Tom Price before he became President Donald trump’s secretary of health and human services. Ossoff represents the best hope the anti-Trump left has of grabbing a previously solid Republican seat in a special election and proving that the Resistance is strong and growing. However, only one problem exists.
Ossoff doesn’t even live in the district and is, therefore, ineligible to vote in his own election.
That, Hot Air suggests, and the boatload of outside money he has raised means that nonresidents are trying to buy a congressional seat to demonstrate a Democratic wave election coming in 2018. But, like Kansas last week, the left may have to settle for a “moral victory” unless something unexpected happens in the meantime.
One problem standing in the way of an anti-Trump wave is that the president is riding a sudden surge of popularity, thanks in large part to his flexing his muscles overseas. There is nothing like bombing enemies of the United States after eight years of appeasement to make Americans like their president.
The other problem is that the Georgia Sixth is a solidly conservative district which used to be the home of Newt Gingrich, the first Republican speaker of the House in over a generation thanks to the wave election of 1994.
Price won his last House election by 23 percent.
Ossoff and his national Democratic supporters are hoping that a higher than expected turnout of their voters and a lower than anticipated number of Republicans go to the polls that will put him over the top at 50 percent plus. If he falls short and the contest goes to a runoff, most political observers believe that Ossoff has no chance.
Trump, for his part, is taking no chances. On the morning of the election, he tweeted that his supporters need to turn out and vote for the Republican of their choice. The only thing that is necessary is for Ossof to fall short of 50 percent, the lower, the better. If he is in the low 40s or even the high 30s, Democrats will be robbed of their moral victory and will be appropriately demoralized as a result.
Congressional Democrats are currently choosing total obstruction of Trump’s agenda with zero or no cooperation. A series of wins of special elections would boost that stance. Defeat, especially in Georgia, should make them rethink that attitude.
