[The Man]

GA-06 looks like it is headed to a runoff, with Democrat Jon Ossoff receiving some 48% of the vote or thereabouts, and the Republican with the most votes, Karen Handel, receiving around 20% (88% of precincts currently reporting). In case you think you recognise that name, you’re probably correct: she was almost single-handedly responsible for destroying the reputation of Susan G. Komen for the Cure nationwide.

If Ossoff had gotten 50%+1 of the vote, he would have won outright and there would have been no runoff. This is still a superb outcome for Democrats, however, because it’s a deep red district that has been Republican for decades (it’s Newt Gingrich’s old district) and before this cycle it was viewed as impossible for a Democrat to win. Ossoff performed roughly in the margin polling expected him to perform, which suggests that a lot of other districts in the same region that look competitive for Democrats now probably will be going forward for at least as long as the shitgibbon is president.

Moreover, the two Republicans that ran on support for the shitgibbon did absolutely abysmally in this election. That suggests a fairly large amount of demoralisation among his base.

I also have to think Handel won’t be a popular candidate. Women in particular have fairly good memories for stuff like this and her tenure at Komen can be fodder for some highly effective attack ads – which, given the national attention this district has received, it almost certainly will. This is a deep-red district and abortion will be a highly divisive issue there, but her actions at Komen also denied mammograms to poor women – which, of course, were the whole purpose of Komen. That is going to go over like a lead balloon with even right-wing voters, particularly since the Republicans’ recent attempts to take healthcare coverage away from poor people are still fresh in people’s memory (and weren’t particularly popular even among the Republican base), and Handel’s actions dovetail with those attempts in a way that opens her to an extremely effective line of attack. I honestly don’t think the Republican voters could have chosen a better opponent for Ossoff to run against if they’d been trying to.

One final note is that there were some “technical difficulties” with voting machines in some (heavily Republican) districts. They don’t have paper trails. It’s difficult not to be a bit suspicious about this.