Georgia’s sixth district is still in Republican hands this morning after GOP candidate Karen Handel soundly defeated Democratic challenger, Jon Ossoff.
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He added: “Republicans blew through millions to keep a ruby-red seat and in their desperate rush to stop the hemorrhaging, they’ve returned to demonizing the party’s strongest fundraiser and consensus builder”.
Pelosi’s defiant comments came as Democrats remained angry and divided after throwing some $30 million into a House race in Georgia on Tuesday, only to end up with a loss that wasn’t even very close. After all, this affluent district is a traditional Republican stronghold that Price easily won in November by 23 percentage points, and that former House Speaker Newt Gingrich held for 20 years.
When I wrote about why Democrats are losing special elections nationwide, I noted the pitfalls of trying to win these contests with outside operatives and by nationalizing the races. That makes the party 0-for-4 in this year’s races for Republican-held congressional seats.
“We’re not focusing on the economic messages. They need to learn from this and figure out how to win next year”.
Cher isn’t the only one blaming Pelosi for the loss.
In the Ossoff race, even though the 30-year-old documentary filmmaker and former congressional staffer ended up running a more centrist and not Trump-centric campaign, Republicans were able to zero in on the more than $23 million in donations Ossoff raised, largely from liberal enclaves like California and NY, and make an easy connection to Pelosi.
“If we think we’re going to win these elections because President Trump’s at 35 percent, I think in districts like mine and certainly Georgia and SC, it takes more than that”, said Rep. Tim Walz of Minnesota.
The Democrat party has refused to infuse any positive in their message and spend the majority of their time on a Russian conspiracy in which there is no there, there. “Nancy Pelosi is not the only reason that Ossoff lost. Time to move forward and win again”.
Handel devoted much of her speech to thanking national and state Republicans for backing her campaign before making a direct appeal to Ossoff’s supporters. The abortion group was the campaign’s biggest purveyor of the fiction that Ossoff’s opponent, Republican Karen Handel, had intentionally deprived women of essential health care by severing ties with Planned Parenthood when she served as a vice president for the Susan G. Komen Foundation. In all four states, Democrats bolstered their historical performance in districts that they lost by big double-digit margins past year.
In a district that has traditionally backed Republican candidates but went for Hillary Clinton by a slight margin in 2016, Democrats are hoping to win over voters who vote reliably Republican but remain skeptical of President Donald Trump.
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“As long as Leader Pelosi is perceived as the leader of the House Democratic Caucus Republicans are going to continue to spend millions and millions of dollars in those swing districts to convince those swing voters, those independent voters, those Republican voters who might go our way, not to vote for our Democratic candidate because of Leader Pelosi”, Vela said.
