This is the first legit poll that has Handel ahead in over a month. Has her up 2. https://t.co/9Hr3QwzLGX
— (((Harry Enten))) (@ForecasterEnten) June 19, 2017
He's referring to this, from the Republican-leaning Trafalgar Group:
I know -- it's just one poll. And Trafalgar has only a C rating from FiveThirtyEight. On the other hand, Trafalgar called the election for Trump, predicting wins in Pennsylvania and Michigan.
Nate Silver looks at the overall polling and tweets:
Georgia 6 now looking more like a pure 50/50 toss-up, instead of a slight Ossoff edge. https://t.co/kNWHYCADWc
— Nate Silver (@NateSilver538) June 19, 2017
(Two other recent polls show the race tied.)
Josh Marshall tweets:
Ominous. Seems like Handels effort to use House baseball shooting to catch up may be paying some dividends. https://t.co/6kCZ8NLVk3
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) June 20, 2017
That's the way it usually goes, right? The most reprehensible Republican ads routinely work. The Willie Horton ad. The Jesse Helms "Hands" ad. So why wouldn't this work?
The bigger issue is that even though this is a district full of highly educated voters, the kind of district in which Donald Trump ran much worse than Mitt Romney, it's still a Republican district. That means it's full of white people who've listened to nearly forty years of Democrat-bashing from Ronald Reagan, the religious right, talk radio, Fox News, and GOP elected officials and admakers. These are voters who believe the worst stereotypes of Democrats. It's an uphill battle for any Democrat to overcome those stereotypes. That Ossoff has done so even temporarily is remarkable.
For decades, heartland whites have been conditioned to despise the Democratic Party, so they nearly always believe the lowest of negative ads about Democrats, and nearly always vote for the GOP in the end. Ossoff might win, but I'll be surprised.
And I hope the Ossoff campaign can prove me wrong.
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