Vote Your Ossoff

Ken AshfordCongress, Election 2018Leave a Comment

Voters in a suburban Atlanta congressional district will decide today whether Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff will win outright a special election for a seat in the U.S. House of Representatives, in a district the Republican Party has held since 1979. The closely watched contest has drawn national attention as the first political bellwether of the Trump era, after the district nearly split its vote between the Republican leader and Hillary Clinton in last year’s presidential election. It even drew the president’s personal attention Monday, when the White House occupant criticized Ossoff in a tweet.

Clearly, Republicans are nervous — as Trump fired off two more tweets this morning:

In order to avoid a runoff, Ossoff must get more than 50%. Republicans hope he fails to reach 50%, thus placing him against a Republican around whom all the GOP will unite.

Nate Silver does not see this happening:

And his answer to that question? Ossoff will win the runoff by 4 percentage points, but that “win” has a large margin of error (8 points).

This is more than about one seat in the House obviously. It will show Democrats that they can win in 2018 — even take back the House.

I expect early returns to be misleading. Georgia 6th has early voting — and motivated Dems will have come out for that. That will be reflected in the early voting.  I don’t expect a win today for Issoff, just the runoff.  But if he gets the win sans runoff, that would be…. yuge.

SIDENOTE: I am a bit concerned about this and wondering why others aren’t:

COBB COUNTY, Ga. – Channel 2 Action News has learned that critical voting machines were stolen just days before polls will open for a special election.

State officials are investigating after equipment was taken from a Cobb County precinct manager’s vehicle. According to Secretary of State Brian Kemp, the equipment was stolen on Saturday evening while the vehicle was parked at the Kroger on Canton Road.