Jon Ossoff, the Democratic nominee in the special election to replace Tom Price in Georgia’s 6th congressional district, is the progressive hope du jour. He has a small lead in an average of polls against his opponent, Republican Karen Handel, ahead of the vote next Tuesday. The district favors the GOP, so victory there would be meaningful to Democrats. This being an electoral offseason, the race has attracted significant national attention (and money).
But are there reasons beyond political intrigue for that, too? What would Ossoff’s victory actually achieve for his party and indicate nationally?
Let’s start with what Ossoff isn’t:
Representative of a decisive vote in Congress. Special elections have mattered on the margins before, such as when Scott Brown replaced Ted Kennedy in Massachusetts and became a 41st vote against health care reform in the upper chamber. But Republicans presently control the House 238-193. There are four vacancies in the lower chamber, two of which figure to be filled by Republicans and one by a Democrat. The Georgia 6th is the only one with a good shot of changing hands (Price is a Republican). But in the here and now, that doesn’t matter much. It’s possible, but unlikely, that the midterm elections could narrow enough that a seat or two could determine the House majority.
Thought of as a potential “star.” Ossoff, just 30, would infuse the appearance of youth into an aging party. The sight of a millennial riding anti-Trump currents to Washington is tantalizing for the Democratic base. But he is brand new to being “the guy” in electoral politics. His experience in them is five months old. (He previously ran a House campaign in a safe district.) During these months, he has benefitted from activist and progressive energy, yes, and most of it from outside Georgia. But he’s run as a self-professed pragmatist, which is a political necessity. “While any Democratic candidate in this area would have to run as a moderate, such a strategy wouldn’t be as successful if Trump weren’t so unpopular,” Judd Thornton, a political scientist at Georgia State University, told me. Ossoff might be victorious now. But it’s a tall task for a Democrat to keep a seat in a district that’s rated Republican +8 by the Cook Political Report; a rare externality like Trump’s deep unpopularity and the voter motivation that comes of it seem necessary to spring electoral upsets like this one would be. (Handel, Ossoff’s opponent, is a conventional GOP candidate with name recognition; she doesn’t do herself any notable disservices.) Who knows how Ossoff would vote if he wound up in Congress?It’s certain that he would have to navigate deftly. The political future of any hypothetical House Democrat in a district like this one would be cloudy.
A nitro boost for Democratic politics. We’re 17 months from the midterms. There are no Democratic pickup opportunities in other special congressional elections on the horizon. There are two governors’ races this year: The party is going to take one of them, New Jersey, regardless of outside forces. Whomever emerges as the party’s nominee in Virginia on Tuesday, Lt. Gov. Ralph Northam or former Rep. Tom Periello, will have demonstrated strong anti-Trump credentials independent of electoral activity in the rest of the country. Democrats have always figured to be a small favorite there, if there’s a favorite at all.
It’s not as if Ossoff is a leading torchbearer against the administration. Rather, he caught fire on the basis of timing, fundraising, and (to his credit) running a careful campaign. This is unique to the Georgia 6th. The propellant for his run could fuel races elsewhere—but the anti-Trump crusade is bigger than any one candidate.
Ultimately, Ossoff could be a cathartic symbol to Democrats angered by the state of affairs and the state of aggression, Montana, where GOP winner Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter on the eve of a House special election last month and still won. He’s also raised boatloads of dough ($15 million in just the last two months) and prompted massive spending on both sides from campaign committees and PACs—perhaps an indication, notwithstanding the race’s unique calendar date and circumstances, that donors and outside groups are prepared to throw down in the Trump age. But most other signs indicate this race is simply intriguing: an electoral thriller at a time we rarely see one.
