Special election could be a devastating blow to the president.
By Michelle Goldberg
... The seat, which once belonged to Newt Gingrich, was supposed to be safely Republican. Former Rep. Tom Price, who stepped aside to become Trump’s secretary of health and human services, won November’s election by 23 points. Now, however, a Democrat, Jon Ossoff, is leading in all the polls. And there’s at least a chance that he could clear 50 percent of the vote come Tuesday, which would mean that Ossoff would not have to face a runoff and would be going to Congress as the first Democrat to hold Georgia’s 6th since 1979.
Gray—a businessman who’s trying to position himself as the most loyal Trump supporter in the race—is fighting it out with three other Republican candidates in the hope of finishing a distant second to Ossoff and keeping the Democrat below 50 percent to force the runoff ...
... If a first-time Democratic candidate could take Gingrich’s old seat, that calculation would likely change and Trump would be seriously weakened, since at least some Republicans would have an incentive to turn on him to save themselves ...
The chance of Ossoff winning outright on Tuesday is still slim. According to FiveThirtyEight’s survey average, he’s currently polling at 46 percent. That puts him far ahead of any of the Republicans: Right now the leading GOP candidate, Karen Handel, is at 18 percent, followed by Gray at 13 percent. At this point, the likely scenario seems to be that the election proceeds to a runoff on June 20, which would give Republicans the opportunity to consolidate their voters ...
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/politics/2017/04/georgia_s_special_election_could_be_a_devastating_blow_to_donald_trump.html
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