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Voter turnout results from Georgia’s special House election paint a bleak picture for Democrats, who put a record amount of money behind their defeated candidate, Jon Ossoff.
Ossoff was bested by GOP candidate Karen Handel in the June 20 run off for Georgia’s sixth congressional district, the voter turnout numbers help explain that result.
Much of the result can be accounted for by the Democrats’ inability to encourage turnout in traditional strongholds despite record breaking campaign contributions pouring in from out of state.
The Pleasantdale Road Precinct, which is the only majority black precinct in the part of the district, is one such stronghold. The precinct averages 57 percent turnout among registered voters but only 34 percent of voters turned out in the Ossoff race, reducing the impact of Ossoff’s overwhelming 82 percent victory in the precinct.
Democrats also failed to turn out voters in heavily democratic precincts 15A and 15B, which encompass apartment-heavy neighborhoods in Sandy Springs. Ossoff won 84 percent in 15A and 66 percent in 15B, but turnout was just 30 percent in 15A and 44 percent in 15B.
Unlike her opponent Handel did not experience turnout issues in the most reliably republican precincts, she won 60 percent of the vote in the Mount Vernon East precinct in Dunwoody, the precinct had 71 percent turnout.
Notably turnout was highest in the Cobb portion of the sixth district, which is the most heavily republican of the district’s 3 counties.
All of the Ossoff hyper-excitement was from outside the state and the media. The local media was much more sanguine, though they did have their breathless moments when the outlier polls, (so identified by an Atlantan because they have been wrong in the 2014 governor's race, the 2014 senate race, the 2016 presidential contest). The local liberals allowed themselves to get swept up in the excitement, but still did not do the job of showing up, above trend.
Local Republicans kept their mouths shut and did the work. There is a moral there, as the pattern has shown up a number of times in the last 8 years.
Difficult to get turnout in strongholds -- no kidding. But you can't stop trying.
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