Despite raising and spending more than 25 million — mostly from out of state and Hollywood liberals — Democrat Jon Ossof lost the race for the open seat in Georgia last night.
And it really wasn’t all that close. In the finals days, polls showed Ossof neck and neck with Republican Karen Handel, and many had him with a slight lead.
The predictions mostly showed younger voters turning out in droves to push Ossof over for the win, on which Dems were ready to pounce as a harbinger of things to come and as a rejection of President Trump.
Not so much.
Republicans are now 4 of 4 in special elections since Trump took the White House.
Here’s more from WSJ…
Republicans held on to a hotly contested U.S. House seat in Georgia on Tuesday, beating back a powerful challenge that ultimately showed the limits of Democrats’ ability to turn opposition to Donald Trump’s presidency into electoral gains.
Republican Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, beat Democrat Jon Ossoff, a former congressional aide, in the most expensive House race in history and the most significant test of the two parties’ political strength since Mr. Trump’s election.
The Associated Press called Ms. Handel the winner.
Republicans had invested heavily in the campaign, with President Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and other party luminaries flocking to the Atlanta suburbs to bolster Ms. Handel’s candidacy. Donors and outside groups poured more than $23 million into Ms. Handel’s campaign, and still the GOP had faced the politically embarrassing prospect of losing a district the party has held for almost four decades.
The result was a big blow to Democrats, who were hungry for a victory to demonstrate that grass roots, anti-Trump energy gives them a shot at taking control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections. Democrats earlier this year lost two other contested House special elections, in Kansas and Montana.
In South Carolina, Republican Ralph Norman held the House seat vacated by Mick Mulvaney, Mr. Trump’s budget director, but by a far closer margin than expected. Mr. Norman defeated Democrat Archie Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs executive, by less than four percentage points. Mr. Mulvaney won the district by 20 points in November and Mr. Trump carried it by 18 points.
The twin victories mean that Republicans are 4-for-4 in the House special elections that are being widely viewed for signals to each party’s prospects next year in the battle for control of the House, which is now held by the Republicans. All along, Georgia had been considered Democrats’ best shot at a victory.
