Do Close Special Elections Mean Republicans Are in Trouble?

What to make of the results of the first two of this spring’s special House elections? Start off by putting them in perspective. They pose a challenge to both political parties, but especially to Republicans, who have been used to an unusually stable partisan alignment, an alignment that has become scrambled by Donald Trump.

Those of us who can remember the 1964–84 years have seen much greater partisan churning. Almost half of the congressional districts that voted for Richard Nixon in 1972 elected Democratic congressmen. Some 191 districts split tickets. In 2012, that number was down to 26, the lowest since 1920.

The number rose in 2016, to 35, with another dozen or so on the cusp. That reflects Trump’s distinctive appeal. Exit polling reported he increased the Republican margin among non-college-educated whites, from 25 points to 39, though he reduced it among white college graduates, from 16 points to 4.

Which leads us to the special elections. The first, on April 11, was in Kansas’s fourth congressional district, to fill the seat left by Mike Pompeo, whom Trump tapped to be director of the CIA. The district is composed heavily of non-college-educated whites — with two-thirds of its voters in Sedgwick County, where Wichita is, and the remainder in rural counties. Republican Ron Estes won by a 53–46 percent margin — well below Trump’s 59–32 percent margin in the district in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrat James Thompson carried Sedgwick County, apparently because of switches by college-educated voters. But Estes carried a solid 62 percent in the rural counties, well ahead of the 2014 percentages there for two other Republicans, Governor Sam Brownback and Senator Pat Roberts.

Given the dynamics of special elections (you can cast a protest vote — and for a locally attuned candidate — without turning the whole government over to the opposition), this looks something like a traditional, pre-Trump margin in what has been a safe Republican seat for 20 years.

The turnout was heavier and the race more contested Tuesday in Georgia’s sixth congressional district to fill the seat of Tom Price, who is now the secretary of health and human services. The district, in the northern Atlanta suburbs, has one of the highest percentages of college graduates in the nation. Mitt Romney carried it by 23 points in 2012. Trump won it by 1.5 percent last year. Despite its Republican leanings, it has heavily Democratic black, Hispanic, and Jewish blocs.

National Democrats rallied to 30-year-old filmmaker and former House staffer Jon Ossoff, who raised a phenomenal $8.3 million. When the first returns came in, Ossoff had 71 percent of the vote, while Republicans were split among 11 candidates. But as all the returns poured in, that was reduced to 48 percent. Ossoff faces a June 20 runoff against Republican Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state and Fulton County commissioner.

In the end, 51 percent of voters chose Republicans, and 49 percent voted for Democrats. Ossoff got 1.3 points more than Hillary Clinton did in last year’s presidential election. The 11 Republicans got 1.4 points more than Trump. Obviously, either candidate could win in June.

The bad news for pro-Trump Republicans is that there is zero evidence that he is making inroads among the slightly larger percentage of those who voted against him.

There’s a clear contrast with Kansas 4, whose results suggest that traditional Republican margins in other less-educated, non-metropolitan areas are greatly threatened. Georgia 6 suggests that in places heavy with college graduates, the 2016 Trump numbers are the new norm — at least in races without incumbents who have established themselves as being in sync with the district.

A glance at the list of the 23 Republican districts carried by Clinton shows that a half-dozen are heavily Hispanic with well-known incumbents. But most are heavily affluent and college-educated. Five such districts in Southern California and one in northern Virginia have increasing immigrant populations; three in Texas, like Georgia 6, have affluent traditionally Republican voters repelled enough by Trump to vote for Clinton.

There would be many more such heavily college-educated districts vulnerable to Democratic takeover but for the fact that Democrats have long since taken them over, starting in the 1990s.

The good news for pro-Trump Republicans is that most of his November 2016 voters have stuck with him. His current 42 percent job-approval rating is only 4 points below the percentage of the national vote he won five months ago.

The bad news for pro-Trump Republicans is that there is zero evidence that he is making inroads among the slightly larger percentage of those who voted against him. Georgia 6 suggests that the highly educated among them are heavily motivated to get out and vote Democratic. Republican incumbents who considered their districts safe may not have worked them hard enough to survive a spirited challenge.

Trump threaded the needle by winning over enough non-college-educated voters to win 100 electoral votes that Barack Obama had won in 2012. Republicans may need to thread a different needle to hold the House.

— Michael Barone is a senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner, a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and a longtime co-author of The Almanac of American Politics. © 2017 Creators.com

Let’s Get Real: The Democrats Didn’t even win a Moral Victory in Georgia

National Review ^ | 04/19/2017 | Jeremy Carl
Posted on 4/19/2017, 6:40:24 AM by SeekAndFind

I don’t want to sound like the Baghdad Bob of the 2018 election cycle, but the special election in Georgia’s 6th congressional district was yet another reminder that despite the mainstream media’s relentless narrative attempting to turn the early days of the Trump administration into a story of GOP rout, reality has stubbornly refused to cooperate with them.

Don’t get me wrong—the GOP is absolutely facing headwinds in 2018. And there’s a lot of political ground left to cover in November. I’d certainly rather be in a position of winning districts by increasing margins rather than decreasing ones. Could the GOP lose the House?—Absolutely. But, as I wrote in my recent analysis of the 2018 election cycle, the Senate is not going to go Democratic in this political environment—or even anything close to it.

GA-06 is according to both the Cook PVI and 538.com the most Democratic-leaning seat in GA held by a Republican. There are 46 districts held by the GOP that are more Democratic than this one according to the 538 model. On the surface that would seem alarming for the GOP since the Democrats need win only 25 more seats to get a majority. But most of these are only very narrowly closer than GA-06. And very few of them will be open seats, as this one was. Given the broader context of the race, the political handicappers had already rated this race as a toss-up. The vast majority of allegedly vulnerable GOP seats are rated as no worse than GOP leans.

And GOP candidates look to have won overall by a couple of percent in an election in which they were badly outspent and spent most of their time attacking each other while Ossoff got slobberly wet kisses from the media and a largely free ride from his GOP opponents. Ossoff got tons of love and money from Hollywood, raising and spending well more than $8 million.

Regardless of what happens in the June runoff, Democrats are not going to bottle that same level of energy and attention and put it in 435 districts in November. They needed a victory and they didn’t get it. And at the end of the day, they didn’t even get that close, finishing with 48.1% of the vote.

Ossoff’s voters were certainly energized. Volunteers came from all over the country and 95% of his money came from outside the district. He took a staggering 71% of the early vote, showing that the most passionate Democrats, the same ones screaming at the GOP town halls, are definitely motivated. But there just don’t seem to be enough of them right now to swing the number of elections they need to win. And In Karen Handel the GOP picked probably the strongest candidate to go up against Ossoff in the general election.

As I wrote in my piece on 2018, the Georgia special election was a must-win for the Democrats if they wanted to show they had real political momentum on their side and a clear path to retake the House majority. They didn’t get there tonight. The reports of the electoral death of the GOP continue to be greatly exaggerated.

http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/3545361/posts

I know it is a red state and this is a very red district in a very red state.. Price just won this district in November by 20 points+ It is not going to swing 20+ points in a head to head race 6 months later.

People really need to stop being so easily manipulated by the MSM propaganda.

The reality is an empty seat, any Democrat was going to probably pull 45% in the district in a special election.... The fact Dems spend 6+ Million bucks to GOTV in the district for the special election got them at most about 3% more than a generic D would have gotten without any outside money or help.

Dem will be vanquished easily in the head to head... hopes to sneak one in while the other side is divided didn’t work... and were never likely to work.

Folks really need to stop buying into the propaganda and sky is falling nonsense of the MSM... its all LIES. All of it, did you learn nothing from the entire 2016 campaign season? They are the propaganda arm of the Democrat party.. nothing more.. they aren’t going to tell you the truth.

Truth is simple.. Price won the district by 20+ points 6 months ago, its not going to swing 20+ points even in a special election to give the D’s the seat, especially in a head to head runoff.

Generic D should have gotten 45%+/- since the seat was open and not going against an incumbent... They wound up with 48%... which was probably due to the massive amount of outside money trying to GOTV... and the fact the other side was fractured... in a direct head to head... D won’t get anywhere near a victory... most likely in the 40-45% range and easily vanquished.... A deep red district is NOT going to swing 20 points toward blue in 6 months unless republicans stay home.

And they aren’t going to win one anytime soon, at least not one in any district that isn’t bluer than blue...

A referendum on TRUMP is a LOSS... they tried to turn 16 into that and LOST.... they will keep LOSING... everywhere but the blues of the blue districts....

The ONLY way D’s win a non deep blue district anytime soon is if the folks Trump brought the party begin to feel he isn’t putting america first.... they EVER feel that, they will go back to being disengaged and Dems have a shot outside their strongholds, but as long as the people who Trump brought to the dance feel he is doing what he said (or trying to anyway) and putting america first.... Dems have ZERO shot outside the whacakdoo leftist districts for any sort of win.

That’s the cold hard political reality... not what he NYT is reporting, or the cable news channels... that’s just the cold hard political reality. As long as Trump is doing (or perceived as doing) what he promised to do... Dems have no prayer.. his supporters will keep showing up... and he will keep winning. If however he is EVER perceived as not doing so, they will go back to being disengaged and not show up and then D’s may have a shot.. but at present there is little chance of that.

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