If Democrats somehow storm back to take the House in 2018 and throw Donald Trump out of office, Tuesday, 18 April may be remembered as the day the resistance truly took shape. In a Georgia district once held by Newt Gingrich, the fiery former House speaker, a 30-year-old Democrat named Jon Ossoff surged far ahead of a crowded Republican field and captured, for a moment, the progressive imagination across the US.



The former congressional staffer and documentary film-maker raised a stunning $8m for his race, largely thanks to the kind of small-dollar, online donations that powered the Bernie Sanders campaign. Had it come along just a few years ago, a candidacy like Ossoff’s in a suburban Atlanta district would have gone nowhere. The fact that he’s a threat to swipe a district most recently represented by Trump’s health and human services secretary, Tom Price, makes his potential victory all the more savory for the left.

What comes next, however, is bound to be over-interpreted by a beleaguered Democratic party desperate for victories and a news media in endless pursuit of a sexy counter-narrative. The only thing better for the press than a perpetual outrage machine like Trump – web traffic is surging, newspaper subscriptions are rising – is a slow-motion downfall. With Ossoff failing to clear 50% and avoid a runoff in a field of 18 candidates, most of them Republicans, his odds of winning in June are low. Still, he is becoming a symbol of the great Trump backlash that history tells us is nigh.

Georgia special election: Ossoff eyes runoff after narrowly missing outright win Read more

Perhaps he really is that. When Dave Brat, a little-known economics professor, felled Eric Cantor, the Republican House majority leader, in a primary in 2014, he presaged the rise of anti-immigrant populism that would give birth to Trump’s triumph. Ossoff might be proof that Democrats can turn red states blue like they had long hoped and finally engage their core voters in the sort of low turnout, off-year elections they had failed at so terribly under Barack Obama.

Incumbent presidents historically see their parties suffer down the ballot. Trump, with his awful approval ratings, is bound to follow that tradition. In a Kansas district he won by 27 points last year, a Democrat lost a special election this month by only 7. Trump is electrifying an opposition that is only going to grow as his re-election draws near and millions of Americans hope to end this surreal detour into a Saturday Night Live sketch made real, every day.

None of this necessarily means Democrats will be able to build up enough power to meaningfully scuttle Trump’s agenda before 2020, however. In the House, gerrymandered districts and the concentration of Democrats in urban seats means a Republican majority will still be very tough to crack in the short term.

While Trump lost the popular vote by three million, he carried 230 congressional seats to Hillary Clinton’s to 205. Actually seizing control of the House next year would mean taking the 23 seats held by Republicans that Clinton won, defending the 12 seats held by Democrats that Trump won, and making several more pick-ups.

In the Senate, the outlook is even bleaker. Democrats next year need to defend seats in 10 states where Trump won and have few obvious opportunities to unseat vulnerable Republicans. The backlash against Trump will probably help the Democrats avoid a bloodbath and lead to a few surprising wins, but the hard truth is that Trump may well get an opportunity to ram another supreme court justice nominee through a Republican-held Senate.

Democrats hopeful $8.3m can spark resistance vote in Georgia special election Read more

But Ossoff does point the way forward. If Democrats recruit compelling candidates and trust the grassroots of their party, they will pull closer to real power again, electing the governors, state representatives and members of Congress who can safeguard an eroding social safety net and protect the rights of the vulnerable people the Republican party has no use for.

Democrats can further separate themselves from the disaster that was 2016, when party elites coalesced around a flawed nominee with a murky political vision and too many controversies to count. Regardless of what happens to Ossoff in June, it appears Democrats are finally beginning to learn the lessons of their failure.