GA-06 Special Election Is 3 Weeks From Today-- And Ossoff Leads Either GOP Front-Runner

DEADLY for GOP candidates

The first round of voting to replace Trump's HHS Secretary Tom Price-- the man who bears a great deal of responsibility for TrumpCare-- is exactly 3 weeks from today, April 18. Georgia's 6th congressional district isn't a district the DCCC ever looks at. They never recruit candidates there and never back local Democrats who run-- NEVER (like in not ever). However, voters in the suburban and exurban parts of Fulton, Cobb and DeKalb counties north of Atlanta that make up GA-06 proved to be unenamoured of Trump-- first in the primary, where he didn't come close to Rubio (while winng statewide) and then in the general, where he barely came out ahead of Hillary Clinton. Last week a Republican firm's poll showed voters in the district unimpressed by Trump's stint in the White House. His negatives (49.7%) outweighed his positives 49.1%)-- in district with an R+14 PVI! The same poll showed these voters blaming the mess over healthcare on the Republicans (61.4%) not the Democrats (26.4%).

Yesterday a new poll was released by Opinion Savvy and it offers the GOP even worse news. Despite right-wing SuperPACs directed by Paul Ryan having poured over $2 million into negative advertising against Ossoff, he's leading the top two GOP contenders COMBINED.

When Nate Silver mentioned on Twitter Monday morning that "voters didn't elect Trump to get Paul Ryan's agenda [and] that's why GOP health care bill was so spectacularly unpopular," he was referring to the whole country. But his diagnosis works in GA-06 as well. Voters there oppose TrumpCare-- the bill their own congressman helped Ryan and the insurance companies write-- 49.7-46.8%. As if that isn't bad enough for the Republicans, these same educated GOP-leaning voters also prefer Ossoff 39.8% to 30.3% over Handel and Gray (together), the two top Republican contenders. No wonder Ryan just sent another million dollars in negative ads down to Atlanta!

And in second round June 20 head-to-head match-ups, it's more bad news for the TrumpCare Party:

• Ossoff 42.4%, Handel 41.0%
• Ossoff 44.3%, Gray 42.3%

Yesterday was the first day of in-person early voting and Ossoff was looking good. 60 Democrats voted as opposed to 28 Republicans. In 2016, the first day saw 46 Republicans and just 23 Democrats. So... despite Paul Ryan's barrage of negative attack ads, something is going on in GA-06 for Jon Ossoff.

According to the polling Dan Moody appears to be a GOP also-ran in this race. The latest poll shows him with just 8% support-- 5th place (4th among Republicans). But this morning the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported that Georgia Senator David Perdue endorsed him, in effect, throwing a monkey wrench into the messy-- and increasingly desperate-- Republican effort to find someone who can credibly stand up to Jon Ossoff in June. Perdue cut a 30-second TV spot that has started airing on Atlanta TV today. In an attack on the Republican front-runner, Karen Handel, Perdue said, "Trust me, we don’t need another career politician up here." (Moody, though, is a former state senator himself.) Meanwhile Gingrich and Marco Rubio have endorsed another ex-state senator, Judson Hill, and former U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss is backing Handel, the very controversial anti-choice maniac and extremist.

If the Republicans lose GA-06, the message will loud and clear-- namely that even Republican-inclined voters want Trump to slow down and move away from the extreme right-wing agenda Ryan, Pence and Price have sold him on. Republican members of Congress will see him as an anchor around the own reelection chances and distance themselves from him, from his kleptocratic regime and from his toxic agenda. And if voters in Montana do the same thing there in June-- which looks more and more possible-- Trump will be forced to start working with a different governing coalition, one that's more centrist and more bipartisan. If you'd like to help Jon Ossoff pull this off, please consider contributing directly to his campaign by tapping the ActBlue thermometer on the right. This race will be won because of get out the vote efforts. It's all up to Ossoff's own campaign. An atrophied Democratic Party has long since lost the ability to do field in districts like this one. Contributing to the DCCC doesn't do Ossoff any good at all. If you want to help him win, please contribute to him, not to the DCCC which only knows how to spend money on things their favorite consultants can commission, like pointless and wasteful TV ads. Ossify knows how to spend the money to win, not to enrich Beltway consultants. the way the DCCC and Paul Ryan do.