Democrats desperate to give President Donald Trump and the Republican majority in Congress a defeat of any kind—and, with the help of a compliant liberal mainstream media, to tie it directly to their efforts to repeal and replace Obamacare—were frustrated by failure again Tuesday night.
Their bright, shining star, 30-year-old investigative documentary filmmaker Jon Ossoff, won a plurality of the votes but failed to reach the 50-percent threshold required to outright win Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District. The former congressional aide will now face off against the state’s former secretary of state, Karen Handel, in a June 20 runoff.
“We will be ready to fight on and win in June if it is necessary,” Ossoff announced to his supporters after exit polling suggested he wouldn’t reach the threshold for victory. “And there is no amount of dark money, super PAC, negative advertising that can overcome real grassroots energy like this. So bring it on.”
The filmmaker, whose company, Insight TWI, is actually headquartered in the U.K., lives a little more than a mile outside the Sixth District’s boundaries while his live-in girlfriend completes her training as a medical doctor, and has vowed to move back to the district once her studies are completed. He was born and raised in the district, however, the Constitution only requires that a candidate be an “inhabitant” of the state to be eligible for office.
Handel had to fend off challenges from 10 other Republicans to win her spot in the upcoming runoff. She finished with 19.8 percent of the vote, 9 points better than third-place finisher Bob Gray. Here are the full results:
- Jon Ossoff (D) — 92,390 (48.1 percent)
- Karen Handel (R) — 37,993 (19.8 percent)
- Bob Gray (R) — 20,755 (10.8 percent)
- Dan Moody (R) — 16,994 (8.8 percent)
- Judson Hill (R) — 16,848 (8.8 percent)
- Kurt Wilson (R) — 1,812 (0.9 percent)
- David Abroms (R) — 1,637 (0.9 percent)
- Ragin Edwards (D) — 502 (0.3 percent)
- Ron Slotin (D) — 488 (0.3 percent)
- Bruce Levell (R) — 455 (0.2 percent)
- Mohammad Ali Bhuiyan (R) — 414 (0.2 percent)
- Keith Grawert (R) — 414 (0.2 percent)
- Amy Kremer (R) — 349 (0.2 percent)
- William Llop (R) — 326 (0.2 percent)
- Rebecca Quigg (D) — 304 (0.2 percent)
- Richard Keatley (D) — 227 (0.1 percent)
- Alexander Hernandez (I) — 121 (0.1 percent)
- Andre Pollard (I) — 55 (<0.1 percent)
Turnout, as in Kansas’ Fourth Congressional District one week earlier, was very low, with just 192,120 total votes cast. In November, when Secretary of Health & Human Services Dr. Tom Price won the seat for a sixth time, 326,005 votes were cast.
Price won that election with 201,088 votes, or 61.7 percent, over his Democratic challenger. On Tuesday night, Republican votes outnumbered Democratic votes, 97,997 (51.0 percent) to 93,911 (48.9 percent). Those numbers suggest at least 103,000 Republicans and 31,000 Democrats didn’t vote.
Republicans were already coalescing behind Handel early Tuesday night, with Gray pledging to support her in the runoff even before the race had been officially called.
“Tomorrow we start the campaign anew,” she told supporters at a watch party. “Beating Ossoff and holding this seat is something that rises above any one person.” {eoa}
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