Tag Archives: Dan Moody

GA-6: Ossoff vs. Handel

By Jim Ellis

April 20, 2017
— Democrat Jon Ossoff came within a relative whisker of capturing the 6th District special election contest last night against 17 other candidates. In an election night that featured a laboriously slow count from Fulton County, Georgia, which experienced technical problems throughout the day, Ossoff tallied 48.1 percent of the vote, just two points away from winning the seat.

Turnout was unusually high for a special election, and the 6th will likely have the highest participation factor of the five special congressional contests occurring throughout the early summer. With the vote totals still a bit sketchy because of the Fulton County problems, and final tallies potentially changing, it appears that just over 192,000 voters will have cast ballots. Compare this to the 28,731 who voted in the California special congressional election on April 4, and the 120,897 participants in the Kansas special held last week. In the regular 2016 general election, 326,005 individuals voted in the congressional election.

Karen Handel, the Republican former Secretary of State placed a solid second and advances to the June 20 run-off election with Ossoff. Her percentage of just about 20 percent almost doubled the vote of the third place finisher, businessman and local city councilman Bob Gray.

Most of the polls released before the special jungle primary appeared flawed because they were not listing all of the candidates. Thus, there was some potential that the surveys over-stated Ossoff’s strength, but such was not the case. They also consistently showed the four competitive Republicans are closely bunched together in low double-digits, but Handel distinctly out-performed most of those estimates.

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GA-6 Today

By Jim Ellis

April 18, 2017 — Voters in the northern Atlanta suburbs go to the polls today, and if a new Opinion Savvy survey is correct, Democrat Jon Ossoff will easily claim the first run-off position but will fall well short of claiming an outright victory in Georgia.

Since Rep. Tom Price (R-Roswell) was nominated as President Trump’s Secretary of Health & Human Services, the Democrats have been investing heavily into the replacement special election, believing that they have a shot to convert this historically reliable Republican district. Their hopes were buoyed in finding that President Trump scored only a 1.5 percentage point win over Hillary Clinton within the 6th District boundaries.

Though five Democrats are on tomorrow’s ballot, the party has coalesced around investigative filmmaker and former congressional aide Ossoff. It is apparent that he is the strongest individual candidate, but the combined Republican number still outpaces him.

The new Opinion Savvy data (April 13; 437 GA-6-weighted likely voters) is very similar to one they conducted over the March 22-23 period. The OS surveys likely provide our best glimpse into the race because the firm is the only polling operation that has included the names of all 18 candidates on their survey questionnaire. Because the entire field is so large, the other pollsters have given their sampling group members only an abbreviated list of individuals from which to choose.

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New GA-6 Data

By Jim Ellis

April 17, 2017 — With the KS-4 special election just concluding last week, we now turn our attention to the imminent Georgia congressional primary. Voters in the northern Atlanta suburbs head to the polls for next week’s much-anticipated electoral contest scheduled for Tuesday, April 18.

While the hot early polling pace has seemingly dissipated for an election that will eventually produce a replacement for Health & Human Services Secretary Tom Price in his vacated congressional district, the RHH Elections firm just released a fresh set of numbers.

Once more, however, we are examining a methodologically flawed survey, but the polling conclusion again proves consistent with other previously released data.

RHH Elections – identified as a group of eight unnamed lobbyists who are conducting an independent poll for this race – uses a combination of survey methods, neither of which included personal interviews with the individual respondents. The RHH survey (April 5-10; 321 likely GA-6 voters; 75 percent IVR; 25 percent online respondents) was conducted questioning participants through an interactive voice response system supplemented with online responses. Therefore, the sample’s error factor is a serious issue, and likely greater than the 5 percent estimated in the pollsters’ analysis.

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GA-6 Polling Takes Shape

By Jim Ellis

April 6, 2017 — As has been the case for the past few weeks, the GA-6 special election to replace Health & Human Services Secretary Tom Price (R) has received the most attention of the five special elections currently in-cycle. Two more polls were just released, and the trend line pattern is beginning to stabilize.

Some are speculating that Democrat Jon Ossoff has a chance to win the seat outright on April 18, meaning garnering over 50 percent of the vote even though 18 candidates are on the ballot. Though all polling shows that Ossoff would finish first if the election were today, none find him within striking distance of the 50 percent threshold. Because the pollsters are not including all 18 names on their ballot test questions, for obvious reasons, the top candidates’ support is likely a bit over-stated.

The liberal organization, moveon.org, released a Lake Research poll (March 26-28; 350 likely GA-6 special election voters) that posts Ossoff at 40 percent, far ahead of Republican and former Secretary of State Karen Handel who registers 18 percent. State Sen. Judson Hill (R), former state Sen. Dan Moody (R), and businessman and local city councilman Bob Gray (R) all follow with 8, 7, and 7 percent, respectively. Combining the listed Democrats and Republicans, the Ds would maintain a bare 42-40 percent edge.

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Another Questionable Poll

By Jim Ellis

March 28, 2017 — The Georgia special congressional election has already been polled rather extensively, but each survey has possessed methodological issues. The latest Opinion Savvy (OS) survey (March 23-24; 462 pre-screened, likely special election voters) appears to follow this same pattern.

The new OS data is unusual in that the individuals comprising the sample group were pre-screened before being selected from the Georgia registered voters list. The pollsters’ are using the selection process to determine the likelihood of special election participation. The polling directors do not provide in depth information about the pre-screening formula. Opinion Savvy was rated a C- performer with a slight Democratic skew according to the most recent FiveThirtyEight analytics organization’s national polling report.

Unlike the previous polls completed for this special election contest, Opinion Savvy does list all of the candidates on their polling questionnaire. The two Clout Research efforts provided only an abbreviated array of choices, and particularly helped Democrat Jon Ossoff because their first poll allowed only he as a Democratic option, while the second listed he and state Sen. Ron Slotin. Eighteen candidates, including five Democrats, are in contention.

The Opinion Savvy survey also draws the conclusion that Ossoff leads the field at or around the 40 percent mark. This could be an accurate depiction because this and the other polls are not so flawed as to make their conclusions unworthy of consideration.

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Specials Update

By Jim Ellis

Feb. 16, 2017 — News is breaking in three of the impending special congressional elections:

GA-6

In Georgia, Gov. Nathan Deal (R) has scheduled the special election to replace newly confirmed Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price for April 18, with a run-off to follow on June 20. Already 15 candidates have announced for the seat.

For special elections, Georgia employs the same system as we’ve previously described when discussing the California race. That is, a jungle primary will be conducted on April 18, with all candidates placed on one ballot. If no one secures a majority the top two finishers, irrespective of political party affiliation, will advance to the special general election in late June.

Democrats intend to make a push for this seat, which should become the most competitive of the five special congressional elections. President Trump only carried this district 48.3 – 46.8 percent in November, a major downturn for the GOP in what is typically a reliably Republican seat.

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