Now everyone knows what happens when a candidate, having never held office, runs for election against more than a dozen opponents but has the advantage of outsized national media coverage.
He’s forced into a run-off that, odds are, he loses.
Democrats and bitter Republicans still blame the news media in large part for Donald Trump’s domination in the last election. As if having a video tape of yourself talking breezily about grabbing women’s genitals played around the clock for a month on national TV would tip the scales in anyone’s favor.
Democrat Jon Ossoff, on the other hand, ran for a congressional seat in a special election for Georgia’s 6th District with exclusively positive national media coverage and he couldn’t seal the deal in this week’s election.
He now has to face Republican Karen Handel in a run-off in June.
The district is historically Republican and Handel only received the most votes (20 percent) in her party, but was up against 10 primary opponents.
Ossoff ran against just four Democrats, none of whom got national media coverage.
The race was treated by the Washington press like a bellwether as to how the electorate was responding to the first three months of the Trump administration.
“Georgia election seen as Trump political barometer,” said a headline in USA Today just before the election.
ABC News: “Trump faces early referendum in Georgia congressional race.”
The New York Times declared in early April that the race “is viewed as a major test of whether a wave of left-wing activism since Mr. Trump’s inauguration will produce change at the ballot box.”
This would be a shock to the conscience if the 6th district had ever shown any real preference for Trump.
He won the district by one point.
Just as Trump seized nearly 220 counties that voted for former President Obama in 2012, he lost ground among about 30 that voted for GOP nominee Mitt Romney, according to a Washington Post analysis.
In other words, Trump took roughly 200 counties from Democrats but one district is in danger of switching parties for a Congressional seat and the episode is pushed by the media as a “political barometer” on Trump’s governing performance.
That was before the election results on Tuesday, which fell flat.
After the anti-climax, reporters saw romance in what almost was.
“Tonight, both sides are calling it a victory,” said a wistful ABC “World News Tonight” anchor David Muir. “But that Democrat came very close to winning on a first try in a district that’s gone Republican for decades; a reflection of some of the anger at town halls across the country.”
Had Trump barely lost his race — On his “first try,” as some might call it — would it have been viewed as “a reflection of some of the anger” across the country?
The Times called the results a “boon” for Democrats and said they would serve as a “performance review at the ballot box for Mr. Trump and the Republican Congress.”
USA Today published an op-ed calling the outcome a “winner” for “the Democratic strategy” in GOP-leaning districts.
The strategy is: Get the national news media to focus an uncritical spotlight on every district and cast it as a potential “performance review” of Trump.
Anyone watching the news could see Ossoff on TV (He’s kind of cute!) getting the tough questions America needs answers to, like:
“Why do you think you fell just short of what you needed?” asked a smiling Stephanie Ruhle of MSNBC on April 19; “Is what Mr. Trump is doing in Washington part of your motivation for running?” inquired the deeply curious CNN anchor Alisyn Camerota on April 18; and, on the same day, a wide-eyed Nancy Cordes of CBS asked Ossoff, “Do you feel more pressure knowing that Democrats across this country have invested their hopes in you?”
By the way, Jon, how do you get your hair so perfect?
Even if Ossoff wins the run-off in June, it will have only proven what everyone already knew: Georgia’s 6th District doesn’t really care for Trump.
But if he loses, it will disprove what Democrats and Republicans with a chip on their shoulder have been saying about media coverage.
More isn’t necessarily good, even when it’s meant to be.
Eddie Scarry is a media reporter for the Washington Examiner.
