By Jim Ellis
May 25, 2017 — A new Survey USA poll (May 16-20; 700 GA-6 adults, winnowed to 549 early and likely special election voters) finds Democrat Jon Ossoff leading former Secretary of State Karen Handel (R) by the largest margin that any of the five post-primary publicly released surveys has yielded for either candidate: seven points, 51-44 percent. But, the sampling group does appear to skew Democratic.
As we know, the Georgia race has become the premier contest during this robust special election season and there is no question it will set a spending record as the most expensive US House campaign in history. Combining candidate and outside group spending, the expenditure totals will easily exceed a combined $35 million. To date, according to research that the Politico publication cited in a May 6 article, the most expensive US House contest was recorded in the 2012 Palm Beach area, Florida campaign (FL-18) between then-Rep. Allen West (R) and challenger Patrick Murphy (D), in which aggregate spending reached $29.6 million.
Democrats chose this race to make a clear stand because the once safe Republican district is showing clear signs of bending in their direction. This became clear in the presidential race when President Trump only secured a 1.5 percentage point victory margin here in a district that, heretofore, had returned big Republican spreads (Mitt Romney scored a 61-38 percent victory margin in 2012, for example).
