I disagree that a narrow win for either side in a district recently won by Trump by 1% is a “man bites dog” story. Of course, sometimes perception equals reality. But that cuts both ways.
FWIW, Handel has been steadily inching up on PredictIt’s betting market. But FWIW is “not much”, IMHO.
Didn’t Trump barely squeak out a win in this district, last November, by 1 point, or am I thinking of somewhere else?
Keep in mind that the last time a congressperson was elected in this district was seven months ago, and the Republican won by 23 points. It was considered such a safe district for Republicans that we’re having a special election there now: the Republican who won in 2016 left the position to join the president’s cabinet. Had Republicans predicted this would be a tossup special election, they almost certainly would have chosen a different person for the cabinet.
That congressperson was a multi-term incumbent. It’s not at all comparable to an open race.
From your cite:
Emphasis added.
So it sounds like we’ve got a couple of data points. Trump barely won the district, Price has been killing it for years. What about other races? How much did Romney win the district by in 2012? What about Senate or Governor races? Had Republicans routinely been winning this area by 15 points, and Trump was an outlier? Or had Republicans barely been squeaking out wins and Price was the outlier?
Cook Partisan Voting Index - Wikipedia calls the district R+8, so about half of Nate Silver’s estimate.
I disagree with NS on applying the generic incumbency advantage here. It’s different here in that Price was a multi-term incumbent and that he had a history of winning by big margins in the past. This means that the quality of his opponent (both in terms of resume and the like, as well as fundraising ability) is likely to be low, and his potential opposition is likely to be dispirited. If you calculate an “incumbency advantage” which includes short-term incumbents in historically competitive districts, then it’s going to look much worse than it is.
You see a lot of instances of this sort of thing. Old time incumbents in changing districts consistently winning big majorities, only to have the district become much more competitive when they eventually step down.
Correction: districts that should be comfortably Republican are not nearly so comfortable when Democrats throw $50M at them. The question becomes - $50M times however many “comfortable” districts - what does that come to?
Beats me. We let our evil puppet master worry about all that. HEIL SOROS!
I’ve lived in/around the district for a while, and the voters here are what could fairly be called rabidly Republican and very politically motivated. Even though I call them “rabid”, I think enough of them are sufficiently principled that they could flip their vote to protest Trump’s offensiveness. But that candidate would have to be experienced, moderate, and authentic. Ossoff is a lightweight greenhorn, Handel is a known Republican quantity.
So that’s the reason for my pessimism. I’ll be pleasantly shocked if Ossoff wins, but I don’t like this Democratic strategy of grubbing around for symbolic victories.
Your premise–that Democrats have outspent Republicans by $50M in GA-06–is false.
Looks like you can sell right now at 56. That’s a pretty solid 33% ROI (PredictIt will shave a bit off that) guaranteed with no risk versus a shot at 138% with a lot of risk. It depends on your estimate of the probability of a Handel win.
I don’t get how people purport to know the voters in their districts by living in and around them. The average congressional district has about 700K people in it, and no one could possibly interact with more than a tiny percentage of them. And of that percentage, you would only know the political leanings of a small percentage. I suppose you could get a bit of additional info if the letters to the editor section of local publication has a decided slant, but that’s not much.
The only way I know how my district leans is by looking at voting results. If there’s some secret way of figuring out more, I’m curious as to what it is.
He’s technically wrong, but his point is valid. Democrats have outspent Republicans by over 3-1 in that race, and the race has set records for spending in a House race. Both of these are unlikely to be replicated nationwide.
Is it? I’m finding stuff saying that the race is going to be about $60 million, and that pro-Ossoff forces have outspent Handel forces by about 5-1, which would be very close to $50 million.
Even if that’s not exact, the overall point may be valid: Dems have put a huge amount of money into this race.
I’m personally unconvinced that’s wise strategy. What if that $50 million were being used instead to bolster party organizations in many relatively weak areas, rather than going for a victory that’s more symbolic than anything else?
Ossoff’s campaign has outraised Handel by a lot. A large proportion of it is small donors. That’s not party decision-making. It’s a bunch of individual decisions. But Handel’s campaign has gotten about 70% of outside spending. That is, largely, decisions made by rich people.
When you put it all together, Ossoff is probably outspending Handel, but it’s close. And while the GOP spending can be regarded as a tactical choice, that’s far less true of Ossoff, who has benefited from a bunch of out-of-state liberals wanting to deal a blow to Trump.
That latter effect is certainly unsustainable. But I think it’s wrong to characterize it as either a strategic choice or some kind of huge strategic advantage in the race.
The flip side of that argument is that winning begets winning. If Ossoff pulls this off, the Democrats nationwide will be pumped up and energized, and might pull in a lot more in added funds than whatever they spend on this race. So you might get all the money back and then some, plus the added confidence and momentum.
OTOH, if you lose, then it’s a bummer, and the emphasis on the race could have the opposite effect. So it’s a gamble.
But in any event, I think your premise - that the money spent on Ossoff was available to be spend any which way, and the only question is the wisest way to allocate it - may be false. It’s likely that the excitement of the race itself is what pulled in most of the money.
And beyond that, the people making the decisions about spending the money have their hands tied to an extent. Much of the base is focused on symbolic races of this sort, and they can’t let them pass by in favor of quiet party-building.
I disagree with your first sentence, and I agree with much of the rest of your post. My entire point (in agreeing with HD) is that it’s largely unsustainable, which you seem to agree with. And if it’s unsustainable, then it’s not a good predictor of future races.
Does the name Newt Gingrich ring a bell? Hint: Represented the district that is the subject of this thread.
Ossoff: $23.6M campaign + $7.6M outside spending = 31.2M
Handel: $4.5M campaign + $18.2M outside spending = 22.6M
So Ossoff outspent Handel by documented spending by about 9M. Of course, there’s some amount of spending that won’t get included here by groups not required to disclose.
But we’re not talking about 5-1 or 3-1 ratios. And the point is that the strategic decisionmaking is really about the outside spending, not the campaign donations.
Okay, let’s do that. This district has been in Republican hands for 30 years, and has voted for Republican presidents since 2000. It is decidedly Republican. If we think the election is going to flip a different way today, then we have to look for other cues that things are changing, like cultural or environmental cues. I’m just saying I don’t see any cues indicating a dramatic change in the electorate. Democratic support is more visible than it has been, but that’s only in areas that were blue/purple anyway.
5+2=6. Accept it!