FYI.

This story is over 5 years old.

Politics

All the Things We Didn't Learn from the Georgia Special Election

The year's most hyped election generated a lot of noise.
An unhappy Ossoff supporter. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

On Tuesday, Republican Karen Handel beat out Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia's Sixth District, a House race that was the most expensive in history. It was the fourth special election contest between the parties in 2017 (a fifth, in LA, wasn't competitive), but this one took on outsized importance because Georgia's Sixth was the sort of traditionally red suburban district that Democrats hope to win in order to take back the House come 2018.

Advertisement

Though Ossoff raised over $23 million, and though Donald Trump only won this area by just two points, Handel, well, handled the 30-year-old Democrat. Anti-Ossoff ads funded by outside groups painted him as an outsider backed by California liberals and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. In the end, Handel won by four points.

That's a far cry from the 23-point margin earned in 2016 by Tom Price, who left the seat vacant when he became Trump's secretary of Health and Human Services. Still, for Democrats a loss is a loss—which is practically the party's unofficial motto at this point.

In the light of the morning after, there are lots of analyses floating around, and an awful lot of data points for pundits to peck at. But there's a lot of noise out there, too—so to help clear things up, here are a few things we didn't learn from the election:

We didn't learn that Democrats are bad at winning elections

I mean, OK, yes, there is a lot of evidence that says they are bad at winning elections. If you believe the Democrats are fundamentally incompetent, Ossoff's loss will do nothing to convince you otherwise. But in the Trump era, Democrats and Republicans have squared off in House races in Kansas, Montana, suburban Georgia, and (in Tuesday's lower-profile race) South Carolina. It seems a teensy bit unfair to declare the Democrats losers if they can't carry those traditionally conservative areas.

We didn't learn that Republicans are weak

On the other hand, Ossoff's loss shouldn't be dismissed as immaterial. Democrats will talk about how just getting close—sort of—to winning a seat that has been Republican since 1979 is a moral victory. But they thought they could win it, and they didn't.

Handel didn't have to do anything novel to hold off Ossoff either. Even though Trump is unpopular nationally, in races like this one it's still enough to run a campaign based on painting liberals as crazy.

Advertisement

We didn't learn if progressive Democrats are more likely to win than moderates

The argument among Democrats right now is whether they should embrace Bernie Sanders–style populism based around raising taxes on the rich and guaranteeing people get higher wages, health insurance, and college educations.

That kind of platform was probably never going to fly in the Sixth, and it never got a chance to—Ossoff was centrism incarnate, a nice young guy in a suit who talked about efficient government and promised not to raise taxes. Would a progressive firebrand have done better against Handel? Probably not. Will more left-wing candidates flourish elsewhere in 2018? Maybe!

We didn't learn much about Jon Ossoff

He's young. He had a lot of money thanks to a national fundraising effort. Beyond that? Kind of a blank slate. As Alexandra Jaffe noted in a profile of the candidate on VICE News Tonight, he could sound "like a politician twice his age."

We didn't learn if Democrats will ever be able to take these sorts of districts from Republicans

It's possible that a better candidate might be able to win a different suburban district full of Republicans who are leery of Trump. All sorts of factors, including the flurry of national media attention, made this a very unusual race. But it's also possible that these districts are just not going to be winnable for Democrats, at least not in the foreseeable future.

We didn't learn if key Trump voters are ready to bail on the president

In the Sixth District, Mitt Romney beat Barack Obama by more than 20 points in 2012 before Trump barely edged Hillary Clinton in 2016. In other words, there are a lot of voters here who went for Romney, then Clinton. But arguably, the demographic Democrats need to think about in the medium and long term is actually Obama-Trump voters—people who liked the way Trump talked, but also want the government to help them out when it comes to things like healthcare. This election told us nothing about those people.

We didn't learn if Democrats will retake the House in 2018

Anyone who predicts anything after 2016 is either a fool, is forced to make predictions because it's their job, or both. You can look at the special elections in 2017, note the Democratic defeats, and declare the party is doomed. Or you can crunch numbers, incorporate more hopeful local election results, and envision a blue wave on the horizon.

Either way, there are unpredictable external events—from the passage of a healthcare bill to a foreign crisis—that might throw the House in one direction or another come the midterms. The most you can say about the Sixth District race is that it sure didn't hurt Trump or the Republicans.

Follow Harry Cheadle on Twitter.