It’d been easy to miss in the shadow of Stacey Abrams’ hard-fought campaign for governor. But Georgia Democrats enjoyed a down-ticket comeback this week that’s not getting the attention it deserves.
Among the good news are significant gains in the Georgia Legislature and the fact the two statewide candidates have made it into rare General Election runoffs — giving Democrats a chance to win statewide office for the first time in at least two cycles. The runoffs fall on Dec. 4.
So far, the headline victory is Lucy McBath’s come-from-behind win in GA-06. The suburban congressional district fell tantalizingly out of our grasp in last year’s ridiculously expensive Special Election. The winner of that Special Election — McBath’s opponent Karen Handel — conceded this morning.
McBath is a former flight attendant who grew through personal tragedy into a gun-safety advocate. She’d never campaigned for anything before briefly throwing her hat into a Georgia state House race and then finally at the last minute switching to the campaign for Congress. But she had a compelling story to tell and got enormous support from gun-safety groups.
Until polls showed the race tightening over the last two weeks, few people gave her much of a chance. Then, most of Tuesday evening, she was well behind in the count — until, finally, late precincts in traditionally red north Fulton County reported, giving her an edge over Handel, a very well-known and experienced local politician.
This really is quite amazing. The Sixth is Newt Gingrich’s old district. Until Trump came along to drive educated suburbanites out of the GOP, it was the vanguard Republican district of the Deep South. Current Sen. Johnny Isakson and former HHS Secretary Tom Price also hail from there. Now, as best I can tell, it’s the whitest district in the country to elect an African-American Democrat.
Another suburban Atlanta district looks even closer: In GA-07, Republican incumbent Rob Woodall is ahead of public policy professor Carolyn Bourdeaux, but only by 890 votes. And absentee and provisional ballots still must be counted. He’s a party apparatchik and an incredible lazy campaigner; she’s a likable, straightforward policy nerd.
Abrams’ close — and sort of still pending — campaign faces even harder math than Bourdeaux’. Because of Georgia’s odd General Election runoff rule, she has an outside chance at a one-on-one Dec. 4 rematch. But it would likely take a combination of factors for Brian Kemp to drop from his current 50.3 percent below 50 percent. And even, if that happened, she’d have to win that runoff — a tall order for a Democrat to win in Georgia.
That’s why the two Democrats who have made it into statewide runoffs need our help. Both are running for extremely important but very different offices. Former U.S. Rep. John Barrow is highly qualified to serve in the as Georgia secretary of state — the job Kemp has mucked up so badly. Barrow came in just 6/10s of a percentage point behind Brad Raffensberger, a businessman who has no experience in government.
But I’m particularly excited about Lindy Miller — a rising star who’s up against a political hack on the Public Service Commission. Lindy was born and raised in Georgia, is a graduate of Harvard’s Kennedy School and has been involved in clean energy entrepreneurship. Her opponent Chuck Eaton can’t do enough favors for Georgia Power — including his successful effort to force Georgia consumers to pay up front for the electric behemoth’s boondoggle nuclear plant expansion.
Obviously, these contests (and Abrams’ if she does get into a runoff) will be all about turnout, which is going to cost money. So here’s where you can dig into your own pocket for one last time in 2018 for John Barrow or for Lindy Miller.
Historically, African-Americans and young people turn out in lower numbers for Georgia runoffs. But there are reasons to believe that a motivated Democratic base could win this year. I’m sure John and Lindy would be first to tell you that they owe a lot to Abrams’ Herculean registration efforts and to the inspiration she provided to get young people and minorities to turnout. The question is whether we can get that same electorate (along with our newfound friends in the ‘burbs) to turn out on Dec. 4.
A whole bunch of state lawmakers also owe a debt to Abrams. But many of their gains — which were concentrated like the congressional gains in the northern suburbs — had to do with the alienation of educated voters from the Trumpublican Party. Believe it or not, those gains were among the biggest in the country.
In the state House, we flipped 14 seats, but lost two, for a net of 12. That will get the GOP majority down in the vicinity of 102-78.
In 23 others districts (including the two where Democratic incumbents lost), Democrats got between 35 and 50 percent of the vote — in many cases in the high 40s In other words, those 23 seats (as well as a few where we didn’t field candidates) may be competitive. They could provide fertile ground for a replication of this year’s results in 2020. Admittedly, those next 12 seats would be a harder task. But just think about it: If we repeated his year’s seat gain, we’d be tied in the Georgia House, 90-90.
In the Senate, we added two districts to seats that we’d won over the last couple of years in special elections. That should place us at 35-21 deficit — further away from the mean ol’ Republican super majority.
Also, eight Democrats topped that 35 percent threshold in losing Senate campaigns — some of those could be competitive in 2020. Winning back the Georgia Senate in 2020 would be an even steeper climb than winning the House. But the closer we get, the more fissures show in the GOP caucus — and the more leverage Dems have on redistricting and other issues.
All this bodes well for future efforts to turn Georgia blue. All 236 state House and Senate seats are up every two years, but the opportunities don’t stop at the Legislature. If Bourdeaux doesn’t pull it out, she’ll be more experienced for a new run at Woodall in 2020, or else a more experienced candidate than she will take on His Laziness. If conditions are right, GA-01 could also be ripe for flip; this year, Dems failed to find a strong candidate in that coastal district, which includes Savannah. And finally there’s the big prize: Politically inexperienced and ham-fisted Sen. David Perdue is certain to face a top-tier opponent. How sweet it will be when that arrogant bully gets thank you notes from us Georgia Democrats for helping to give us a majority in the U.S. Senate.