GA-06: We finally have our first poll of the June 20 runoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, courtesy of Democrat Jon Ossoff via Anzalone Liszt Grove, and it finds Ossoff leading Republican Karen Handel 48-47. That's the same percentage of the vote that Ossoff took in last month's all-party primary, so at first blush, it seems surprising that his campaign would want to put out numbers showing him making up no ground while Handel jumped all the way up from her 20 percent share to within a point.
But, as some analysts have speculated, this release may have been aimed at exciting donors rather than satisfying hardcore poll nerds: The results were first shared on Monday night by Rachel Maddow, who reported on it favorably. The next day, the Ossoff campaign subsequently provided more data from its poll, and that information helps explain why they felt good enough about it to publicize it in the first place.
The most interesting numbers are the two candidates' favorables: Despite bearing the brunt of millions of dollars' worth of GOP attack ads, Ossoff is actually above water with 50 percent favorability score and 44 unfavorable. Meanwhile, Handel is actually somewhat less popular and even less well-known, sporting a 46-45 rating—remarkable, given that Ossoff is a first-time candidate while she's run statewide three separate times.
Anzalone's memo also addresses the 5 percent of voters who are undecided. Ordinarily, you'd expected those who haven't made up their minds in a district that is this historically red to lean Republican, but Anzalone says that this slice of the electorate actually trends "disproportionately female, in communities of color, and in DeKalb County," all groups that favor Ossoff. (Ossoff took 59 percent of the vote in DeKalb in the primary, by far his best performance in the three counties that make up the 6th District.) However, we're talking about a sample of just 30 voters, and it's hard to get an accurate read on such a small group.
It's also worth noting that all of the polls conducted ahead of the primary badly underestimated Ossoff, predicting he would win just 42 percent. That 6-point miss suggests pollsters didn't accurately forecast just how intense Democratic enthusiasm would be—something they openly fretted about beforehand. Anzalone of course has the benefit of being able to learn from the errors of others, but this is still a tricky electorate to get a bead on.
And then there's the matter of the proverbial dog that didn't bark, one of the most important factors to consider when analyzing internal polls. Handel and the GOP have undoubtedly been polling this race frequently, yet if they have numbers that contradict these, they haven't released them in response to Ossoff. Sometimes, silence speaks volumes. So if these results are in fact accurate, and if Anzalone's take on the undecideds is correct, then Ossoff remains in a position to win the runoff.
And both sides are still behaving as though that's very much a possibility. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ossoff just reserved $5.2 million in television and radio time through the runoff, which, among other things, suggests that he expects his already-intense fundraising to stay strong. Handel herself is also finally going on the air after being dark for two weeks following the primary, narrating a minute-long TV spot in which she describes her humble upbringing and penchant for hard work. However, there's no word on the size of the buy.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce just launched a $1 million TV buy of its own, featuring an ad that slams Ossoff because he has the support of "Hollywood liberals" who "share the same agenda" as Nancy Pelosi. The second half praises Handel in the most vapid of generalities—"gets results," "get things done"—then concludes by saying she's "one of us," which is yet another unsubtle attempt to "other" Ossoff.
However, not everyone in GOP-land is rallying around Team Handel. While Handel has earned the support of two of the other three main Republican competitors she ran against in the primary, Dave Weigel of the Washington Post notes that one of them, former state Sen. Dan Moody, has "pointedly declined to endorse her." Moody finished fourth overall with 9 percent of the vote, and with both finalists clawing for every available vote, Handel can ill-afford any defections.