Why Georgia went R

[RINO Tom]

Dems ran the pre 2016 campaign strategy....to no one's surprise it failed epically.

This is all that needs to be said.  This "suburban strategy" will crash and burn, and the GOP will become more invincible to it as the party evolves over the next 30 years.  Sorry, but that's just the truth.

[RINO Tom]

It's a gerrymandered Republican district. A Republican state Senator said as much.

So why'd you think you'd win it?

[RINO Tom]

Dems ran the pre 2016 campaign strategy....to no one's surprise it failed epically.

This is all that needs to be said.  This "suburban strategy" will crash and burn, and the GOP will become more invincible to it as the party evolves over the next 30 years.  Sorry, but that's just the truth.

GA-06 election results
Romney +23

Handel +3

Clearly the Democrats aren't making any inroads.

You can remain confident that "educated suburbanites" will shed their political views overtime and become Democrats, rather than (almost) rejecting TRUMP's GOP (which, again, they didn't and haven't in a majority).  Maybe it'll work out for you.  I think it won't.

[RINO Tom]

Dems ran the pre 2016 campaign strategy....to no one's surprise it failed epically.

This is all that needs to be said.  This "suburban strategy" will crash and burn, and the GOP will become more invincible to it as the party evolves over the next 30 years.  Sorry, but that's just the truth.

GA-06 election results
Romney +23

Handel +3

Clearly the Democrats aren't making any inroads.

You can remain confident that "educated suburbanites" will shed their political views overtime and become Democrats, rather than (almost) rejecting TRUMP's GOP (which, again, they didn't and haven't in a majority).  Maybe it'll work out for you.  I think it won't.

A moderate republican who isn't trump just got crushed. Trump hasn't created a new trend, he's simply accelerated what's been happening for a long time.

Like I said, stick with that strategy all you want, but the majority of your fellow Democrats disagree with that approach now, and the base of your party doesn't WANT those voters because they think the views they'd bring are antithetical to the Democratic agenda, so you're going to have a tough time getting that strange marriage to work.

Again, it might work.  But the analogy I see is the Democrats are whispering in the ear of a girl who's REALLY mad at her boyfriend, telling her how horrible he's acting and what a jerk he is and how he's different from when they started dating, all in the hope that they can swoop in and steal her ... problem is, I don't think she has any actual interest, and she (maybe delusionally) still thinks her GOP boyfriend will go back to normal ... and even if he doesn't, she STILL slightly prefers him to her Democratic alternative.

(I tried to make that statement gender neutral, but it was just WAY too clunky, LOL.)

[RINO Tom]

Dems ran the pre 2016 campaign strategy....to no one's surprise it failed epically.

This is all that needs to be said.  This "suburban strategy" will crash and burn, and the GOP will become more invincible to it as the party evolves over the next 30 years.  Sorry, but that's just the truth.

GA-06 election results
Romney +23

Handel +3

Clearly the Democrats aren't making any inroads.

I love how you skipped the "Trump +1" part. I agree that this area is trending Democratic and that GA should be a blue state by 2024 or 2028, though.

To be fair, Rubio probably would've won this district by 6-10%.  

That's the point: the GOP floor is ridiculously high in these "muh educated cosmopolitan Republicans turned off by Trump" districts.  Who cares if you lose by 10 or 1?  There are too many Republicans who will bite the bullet and vote GOP no matter what.

[RINO Tom]

The perception of Ossaff as an immature millennial, this still being a pretty R district at heart, Handel being a good opponent, the races extreme nationalization, successful attack ads against Ossaff, etc all hurt.

Handel wasn't that good of a candidate (she didn't even have an incumbent advantage) and Ossoff ran not only a great campaign but messaged himself as best as he possibly could for the kind of reluctant Trump voters in this district. This is what RINO Tom and I have been saying all along: in order to win over these kind of voters in the sunbelt (notwithstanding districts that have changed primarily because of an influx of minorities or millennials), the Democrats are gonna have to moderate more on economics to bring the affluent college educated suburban whites into the fold of the Democratic Party. That's the price we're gonna have to pay to bring them in.

I don't agree. One striking thing is the money and national attention spent in SC 05 versus GA 06. There was next to no money spent in SC 05, no preparation, nothing, Yet, that district returned 48% Democratic. I think that the GOP spent money and nationalized the race to keep the college educated cohort Republican enough to win this race. They had to nationalize and polarize the election through advertisements and spending and national attention to keep it GOP by 4 points. This is a district that was Romney +23 in 2012 and shifted radically in 2016; and clearly has maintained that shift.

I think the GOP had a worse night in the long run. They learned that to maintain the House majority, they need to dial up the polarization to 11 and spend a lot more money while the Democrats can pick off sleeper seats with minimal investment. I think a lot of people are underestimating the dangers of the GOP strategy (they can't polarize a 50-50 country forever without the dam breaking).

We learned the GOP base needs money and national investments to come out whereas the Democratic base is going to storm out no matter what. That actually fits with what we know of the number of specials so far.

This.  It's pretty amusing to see atlas CW do a complete 180 overnight btw.  Suddenly, the Monday morning quarterbacks who were singing Osoff's praises and laughing at how pathetic/desperate the GOP's attacks were seem to have conveniently decided Osoff ran a bland, dull excuse for a campaign that failed to respond effectively to "effective" attacks like the once-infamous Star Wars ad.  Of course, these newly converted chicken littles still aren't half as bad as the True Left internet slacktivists who were basically rooting for Osoff to lose just so they'd have a new excuse to whine about "muh neoliberals." 

The fact is that this is a very partisan and very Republican district where Democrats had no business even trying to keep their loss to single-digits on paper.  The fact that this was a highly competitive race mattered far more than who won and I'd still say that even if Osoff won.  Republicans have about as much to celebrate as they did in 2006 when Jean Schmidt beat Paul Hackett in OH-2.  And I like how the True Leftists conveniently seem to forget that Osoff and Archie "Evulz Goldman Sachs Employee!!!!" Parnell both did better in far tougher districts against much stronger opponents than Rob Quist did in the MT special.  If Osoff's defeat means a suburban strategy won't work, intellectual consistency dictates that Quist's defeat proves a left-wing populist strategy would be a disaster (both absurd claims, but you can't make one while rejecting the other).

I think it's just kind of funny that no Democrats are celebrating the SC "close loss" and wondering if they might be able to flip back a few "WWC" voters after all.