Thursday, April 20, 2017

In Georgia, Big Money Couldn't Buy Democrat Love

Because Democrat Jon Ossoff didn't get the requisite 50+% of the vote in the special election to replace Republican Tom Price, there will a runoff election in June with Ossoff squared off against Republican Karen Handel for Georgia's vacant 6th District's U.S. Representative.

The media and Democrats thought they really had this one, in what has been a decades long Republican stronghold in the belief that this election would actually be a referendum on President Trump. Outside Democrat money and outside activist volunteers poured into Georgia's 6th District in an attempt to give Ossoff the win.  In fact, Ossoff had raised $8.3 million in campaign funds of which 95% were from sources outside the state to win 92,390 votes.  That's about $90 a vote.  Compare that to Karen Handel's $463,000 campaign for 37,993 votes; or, a little over $12 per vote.

The point here, is that Democrats always think that money and not message is the winning element in any election.  Hillary spent double what Trump spent and still lost.  Then there was the recall election of Governor Walker in Wisconsin in 2012.  Democrats -- mostly from outside sources -- spent an unheard of $81 million in an attempt to oust Walker and failed.  By comparison, the combined Republican and Democrat Wisconsin Gubernatorial campaigns in 2010, that saw Walker become governor, spent a total of just $37.4 million.

The bottom line, is that Democrats aren't winning, and their policies aren't winning over the voters.  Some pundits are already predicting that Karen Handel is likely to win with only herself as the sole Republican in the June runoff instead of competing with this last election's 10 other Republicans.   If Ossoff only repeats his 48.1% vote count, she wins the majority and takes the District.

References:

Georgia Special 6th District Election: Final Voting Results: http://heavy.com/news/2017/04/georgia-6th-sixth-district-live-results-voting-numbers-who-won-winning-jon-ossoff-karen-handel-runoff-atlanta/

Outside Money And Volunteers Pouring Into Georgia Special Election: http://www.npr.org/2017/04/15/524076532/outside-money-and-volunteers-pouring-into-georgia-special-election

Trump spent about half of what Clinton did on his way to the presidency: http://www.cnbc.com/2016/11/09/trump-spent-about-half-of-what-clinton-did-on-his-way-to-the-presidency.html

Recall Race for Governor Cost $81 Million: http://www.wisdc.org/pr072512.php

Wisconsin recall breaks record thanks to outside cash: https://www.publicintegrity.org/2012/06/03/9039/wisconsin-recall-breaks-record-thanks-outside-cash




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