Fiscal conservatism has been the main theme of Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff’s recent district-wide TV advertising. | Getty Ossoff attracting surprising levels of GOP support in Georgia special

Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff has drawn notice for the legions of Democrats volunteering, donating and voting at unusually high rates to support his campaign. But Ossoff has also quietly attracted a small but potentially pivotal share of Republican support in his special election race, according to a new analysis of the April 18 primary — one major reason why the two-month runoff for Tom Price’s old district is expected to be so close and hard-fought.

The voter-file analysis of the special primary was conducted by Optimus Consulting, a Republican data-analytics firm that has been observing the Georgia race. The voter file allows Optimus and others to dig for details about who exactly turned out for the first round of the special election, and how they likely voted.


And the firm’s most conservative estimates say Ossoff captured at least 8 to 10 percent of the GOP’s votes in the primary, a critical slice given that Republicans comprised only a narrow majority of the electorate. While Ossoff’s campaign and motivated Democrats helped drive unusually high levels of voting in the primary, it’s clear that more than turnout propelled Ossoff’s campaign into his one-on-one runoff match-up with Republican Karen Handel in a longtime GOP district.

“Based on the final results of the jungle primary, most independents and a small but relatively sizable portion of Republicans voted for Jon Ossoff,” said Alex Alduncin, an analyst with Optimus.

Defining “Republican” in Georgia is not as straightforward as it is elsewhere. Voters do not register with a party in the state; Optimus used past primary turnout and other voter characteristics to model which voters are “Republicans” as well as “Democrats” and “independents.” The firm’s findings correspond with polling and analytics of the Georgia race conducted by other groups.

Optimus partner Scott Tranter said the crossover vote was an unwelcome sign for the GOP, but one the party had time to correct.

“Generally speaking, losing more than 10 percent of your own party to the opponent is not a good trend, and Ossoff got close to that in the jungle primary,” Tranter said. “We do not expect that to be the case in the runoff.”

Democrats appear focused on maintaining their share of crossover voters early in the runoff. In his latest TV ad, Ossoff declares that “both parties in Congress waste a lot of your money” and says his plan is to “cut the wasteful spending” and “reduce the deficit so the economy can keep growing.”

While opposition to President Donald Trump has played a significant role animating Ossoff’s donors and volunteers and Democratic partisans in his district, fiscal conservatism has been the main theme of Ossoff’s recent district-wide TV advertising, and Trump has been notable by his absence for over a month. One of Ossoff’s early TV ads featured Ossoff pledging to “hold President Trump accountable,” but it stopped airing on broadcast TV in late March — soon after the DCCC convened focus groups in the district to help Democrats refine their special-election message.

(Ossoff’s TV ads did continue to go after Trump in one venue: Atlanta’s Spanish-language stations.)

The DCCC is also attacking Handel from a fiscal conservative angle, charging her with spending wastefully as Georgia’s secretary of state in post-primary ads.

Republicans, too, appear to be focused directly on those conservative-leaning voters in the middle of Georgia’s 6th District. Since March, a steady drumbeat of TV ads from the NRCC, Congressional Leadership Fund and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have linked Ossoff to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and others from the Democratic Party’s left wing, seeking to paint him as too radical for the Atlanta suburbs.

And since the primary, one of the top lines on the NRCC’s opposition-research website appears to be encouraging friendly groups to try to boost the Republican share of the electorate in the runoff. “38,000 high propensity Republicans did not vote on April 18 but are able to vote in June,” the website notes.

Republicans still comprised a majority of special election voters in the primary, according to Optimus, but the party’s share of the electorate plummeted from its usual levels. Optimus’ model identified just over 53 percent of special primary voters as Republicans, compared to over 60.3 percent of 2014 general election voters and 63.7 percent of 2010 general voters.

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Independents made up most of the difference, rising to 15.4 percent of the special election voters compared to 7.5 percent of the 2014 electorate. Democrats comprised 31.5 percent of special election voters, according to Optimus’ analysis.

Turnout almost reached midterm levels in April, with about 193,000 voters participating, compared to about 210,000 in November 2014 and 198,000 in November 2010.

Ossoff’s campaign drew significant strength from irregular voters: Optimus estimated that the Democrat won at least 70 percent of the 49,000 special election voters who had not voted in 2014. The millions Ossoff raised before the primary gave his campaign the flexibility to devote resources to capturing swing-voter support and turning out low-propensity Democrats and independents.

Ossoff and Handel’s campaigns are both expected to be well-funded in the runoff, and they will continue trying to drive base turnout while also appealing to swing voters. But, as the line on the NRCC website indicates, Republicans have more turnout targets left than Democrats do. Optimus noted that there are 35,000 Republicans who voted in the 2016 presidential primaries and did not vote in the special election, compared to 11,000 Democrats.

Optimus’ analysis also estimated that the special primary electorate was 77 percent white — down from 82 percent in the 2014 general election. While African-American levels were slightly lower (7 percent versus 8 percent in 2014), other minority groups’ share of the electorate rose compared to 2014. Latinos rose to 3.6 percent from 3.4 percent, Asian-Americans rose to 4.5 percent from 3.4 percent, and the “other” category jumped to 7.8 percent from 3.3 percent in 2014.