Don’t believe the Republican spin that this was expected and they’re home free in the runoff. While I support Karen Handel and she is a friend, her campaign team has often lagged in generation of grassroots enthusiasm and she does not like to raise money. That said, she is so well known in the 6th, she could play the first stage of this race conservatively and did. Additionally, while the race was going to be close given the dynamics, Jon Ossoff did better than most people, myself included, expected. He outperformed the polling and did better than Hillary Clinton. Democrats are far more energized than Republicans and warning lights should be going off at the NRCC and NRSC right now. Had Ossoff gotten less than 45% of the vote, I would say you really cannot read anything into this. That he almost won is troubling for the GOP.

[And] don’t believe the White House spin that this was not a rebuke of the President. The more closely aligned a candidate was with President Trump, the worse that candidate did. Bob Gray, who was viewed as the Trump candidate, actually opposed Donald Trump vocally throughout the primaries and at one point was declared NeverTrump. But he ran as a partner for Trump. He did better than Bruce [LeVell] who did coalitions work for President Trump in Georgia. He, in turn, did better than Amy Kremer who helped run a Trump related super PAC.