With Democrat Jon Ossoff maintaining his momentum in the special election to fill an open congressional seat in Georgia, the Cook Political Report on Monday changed the historically ruby-red district’s rating to a Republican toss-up.
“There is a real chance Democrat Jon Ossoff, who is dramatically outspending the rest of the field while the main GOP contenders turn on each other, could hit 50 percent on April 18 and avoid a runoff,” Cook Political Report’s David Wasserman wrote in a post about the rating change.
Ahead of the April 18 special election to fill the House seat vacated by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, Ossoff is leading a crowded field. A poll released last week showed the former congressional staffer leading the race with 43 percent, trailed by Republicans Karen Handel and Bob Gray with 15 and 14 percent support, respectively.
The election will function as a jungle primary in which all candidates regardless of party will appear on the ballot. If no one candidate clears 50 percent, the top two candidates will compete in a June runoff.
From the outset, Democrats have been hopeful that they could use disapproval of President Donald Trump to turn the ruby-red district blue (Trump bested Hillary Clinton in the district by just one point in the November election). Republicans in the race, for their part, have been going after Ossoff hard, with one candidate even grasping at straws to tie him to terrorism through his investigative documentary work with the Qatari-based network Al Jazeera.
