June 21, 2017

The Daily 202: Democrats despondent, Trump emboldened after GOP victory in Georgia special election

By James Hohmann
the Washington Post

THE BIG IDEA: With all the ballots counted, Republican Karen Handel won the most expensive House race in U.S. history by 3.8 percentage points. That’s a larger margin of victory than the 1.5 points that Donald Trump carried Georgia’s 6th Congressional District by last November.

Handel even wound up winning by a greater margin than the GOP candidate in an unexpectedly close special election to replace OMB Director Mick Mulvaney in South Carolina that had not been on the national radar.

The suburban district north of Atlanta is ruby red and has been in GOP hands since Newt Gingrich won it in 1979, but that does not make Jon Ossoff’s defeat any less devastating for Democrats struggling to find their way in the Trump era.

-- Last night was a wake-up call for Democrats that they still need to home in on an effective anti-Trump message. Seth Moulton, the Democratic congressman from Massachusetts who has been flirting with a longshot 2020 presidential bid, seized on the results:

-- The results are already prompting Democratic recriminations, as the Bernie Sanders wing of the party pushes the establishment to get behind more liberal candidates. Initially, Ossoff’s mantra was “Make Trump Furious.� But he rarely talked about the president toward the end of the contest because he needed to win over moderate Republicans and didn’t want to motivate low-propensity Trump voters to turn out against him. He modulated his rhetoric, calling for fiscal conservatism in his ads and focusing on jobs. He avoided hot-button issues and called for civility.

Liberal activists and their allied outside groups are grumbling that Ossoff moderated too much, and they’ve been complaining for weeks that the national party apparatus invested more to help him than outspokenly liberal candidates in Montana and Kansas special elections. “The best way for Democrats to maximize gains in 2018 — especially in purple and red districts — is to harness the power of the resistance and field candidates who proudly challenge power,� said Adam Green, co-founder of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee.

From the executive director of the National Nurses union and a prominent Bernie supporter:

-- “Ossoff chose the high priest route instead of the fierce warrior. It was civil disobedience rather than civil unrest. And he still lost,� Paul Kane writes in a dispatch from Sandy Springs, Ga. “Privately, Democratic strategists said even before the votes were counted Tuesday that Ossoff’s civility campaign would be mirrored only in more Republican-leaning districts, and that a more aggressive anti-Trump campaign would be waged by candidates in longtime swing districts.�

-- The outcome demonstrated that two political fundamentals remain true: Attack ads work, and candidates matter.

Democrats pinned their hopes on a 30-year-old who had never run for office before and didn’t even live in the district. Ossoff became more dynamic on the stump as the race dragged on, but his lack of a record made it easy to caricature him. He was a vessel through which Democrats channeled their hopes, but he lacked charisma. As a former CNN reporter who now runs Snapchat’s news division memorably put it:

Handel, 55, has been a fixture of local politics for 15 years. She chaired the Fulton County Board of Commissioners, served as Georgia secretary of state and narrowly lost GOP primaries to become governor in 2010 and then senator in 2014. She had the baggage that comes with being a career politician, but her deep roots and relationships certainly helped far more than they hurt. She was a known commodity who came into the race with high name identification.

In conceding, Ossoff stressed that winning was always against the odds:

Total spending in the race topped $50 million. National Republican groups poured resources into the race to offset Ossoff’s impressive online fundraising. In the end, from the April primary through yesterday’s election, both sides were equally matched on the airwaves. Republicans spent $12 million and Democrats spent $12.2 million, according to sources tracking the air war.

Nancy Pelosi was a huge drag on Ossoff. The most prominent and effective hit on the Democratic candidate was to tie him to the congresswoman from San Francisco.

Republican operatives say that 98 percent of voters in the 6th District already had an impression of Pelosi when they conducted their first internal poll, and she was 35 points underwater. When presented with the choice of whether they wanted a representative who would work with Paul Ryan or Pelosi, six in 10 picked the Speaker and three in 10 picked the minority leader.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned closely with Ryan, spent more than $7 million in Georgia. “CLF tied Ossoff to Pelosi and her liberal agenda early and often, echoing the message on television, digital and radio advertising, as well as campaign literature and direct mail,� Corry Bliss, executive director of the group, writes in an after-action report that will be widely distributed later today. Other outside groups and Handel also focused on this theme.

Dave Weigel obtained the mailers that the group sent into the district, and Pelosi is dominant in each. Here are three examples of how they used her:

Some Democrats expressed concern last night that Pelosi will be a drag on their hopes of winning the House next year. One liberal writer for Vox suggested last night that it is time for her to go:

Pelosi’s deputy chief of staff fired back:

Republican operatives, including the executive director of the NRSC, trolled Hammill by saying that they want Pelosi to stay on as leader forever:

Pelosi’s job is secure, but insiders say to expect a raucous House Democratic caucus meeting today when the results are discussed.

-- The results will embolden Trump and may convince him that he doesn’t need to course correct. A CBS News poll published yesterday showed that the president’s national job approval rating has slipped to 36 percent. Even among Republicans, his approval rating is 72 percent -- down 11 points since April. Yet as far as Trump’s concerned, he keeps winning – even when the polls and the pundits forecast doom. The GOP base clearly rallied behind Handel, and she closed strong in the final days of the campaign. Rightly or wrongly, the president perceives her victory as a mandate.

Trump stayed up late watching the returns come in and began live-tweeting as soon as it became clear that Handel would prevail:

A West Wing that has grown accustomed to losing news cycles was in a celebratory mood:

A counselor to the president:

A deputy assistant to the president, on the National Security Council staff, took a screenshot of CNN hosts looking unhappy, suggesting that it was because of the results:

The First Sons joined in:

-- GOP leaders on Capitol Hill are relieved that Handel’s win will avert a collective freak-out of the rank-and-file. The results “may embolden Republicans in Washington to press ahead on an ambitious policy agenda that has yielded few legislative victories since Trump’s inauguration in January,� Robert Costa, Paul Kane and Elise Viebeck report. “Most immediately, the election result could bring momentum to Senate Republicans’ efforts this week to craft their version of a major revision to the Affordable Care Act. ‘We need to finish the drill on health care,’ Handel said during her victory speech� in Brookhaven, Ga.

“By any measure, the victory proves the Republican political machine is alive and working well,� GOP super lobbyist Ed Rogers argues on the PostPartisan blog. “This race proves Republicans have no reason to be defensive as a result of Obamacare’s demise, it shows Republicans have nothing to hide from in the age of Trump and it signifies that nothing about the current faux-scandal-ridden environment has produced a downdraft for Republicans.�

Republican lawmakers who have tough reelection races in 2018 will see Handel’s victory as proof that they can thread the needle when it comes to Trump. Handel hardly mentioned him, yet she was still able to win over his supporters. We saw the same dynamic at play in several 2016 contests, as well. As a political reporter for the Philadelphia Inquirer notes:

The political editor at National Journal makes another important observation:

-- Bigger picture: Perhaps the GOP House majority isn’t as vulnerable as some people have been saying. But veteran Republican operatives also warn against overreading the lessons of one special election. There are many districts that will be a lot tougher for Republicans to hold than Georgia’s Sixth next November.

Ken Spain recalls the 2010 cycle, when he was the communications director of the NRCC:

A Los Angeles Times reporter puts it more starkly:

From the conservative editor of Commentary Magazine:

NBC’s senior political editor is looking to this November:

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