According to Decision Desk HQ*, Karen Handle acquired 51.9% of the vote and a total of 134,595 votes out of 259,488 total votes. Jon Ossoff was able to get 124,893 votes which is 48.1%. That means 9,702 people voted for Handle that swayed the result her way. Is this a “sweeping” result? It was close, but in the end, not all of the Progressive out of state money poured into Ossoff’s pockets could stop Karen Handle.
Why did Ossoff lose? Maybe it was the perspective that they could paint Karen Handle into not supporting the new tag word for minimum wage: a “living wage” or that she was a “career politician”, ignoring Ossoff’s own background in the process. The man did not even live in the District where as Karen Handle did. This was tried to be stepped around as celebrities gave support to Ossoff giving the impression that another state was directly influencing what is a local election to people that live in District 6*. However, in the end, Handle won 9,702 more votes than Ossoff. Meaning that many more people identified with her and saw her as their choice to represent them in the House.
Karen Handle is a victory for the people of District 6 and we shall see how she does in Congress. South Carolina also kept its Republican seat. Does this reflect 2018 in some slight fashion?
In my opinion it does not. A lot can happened between now and 2018, especially with the volatile climate of Foreign and Domestic, the “out of touch” mainstream media, “celebrities” and both parties fracturing, 2018 is unpredictable. This is just local people electing the candidate they feel was best for them. That should be the message both parties should receive especially when comparing the total votes out of how many voters voted in 2016 in those districts.
Side Note: If you do visit the pacific Standard article, it tries to paint Karen Handle as a “dark horse national” candidate based on money she received from PACs than Individual Donors….
Sources:
*https://decisiondeskhq.com/results/georgia-sixth-congressional-district-special/
*https://psmag.com/news/where-did-all-the-money-come-from-in-the-georgia-house-race
