During a speech in Iowa on Wednesday, President Trump veered from the topic at hand for just a moment to celebrate the victories of Karen Handel and Ralph Norman in special elections the night before in Georgia and South Carolina.
“Between the two of them, that was a big night,” the president said, touting the Republican Party’s clean sweep in recent weeks. “So we’re five-and-o in special elections.”
Noting the GOP’s sterling record in special election season is well within reason, especially for Trump, given that the media framed key races as potential harbingers of midterm trouble for Republicans challenged by his presidency.
The president didn’t miss his opportunity to point that out either. “Had our wonderful candidate lost, this would have been one of the great big stories in the history of American politics,” Trump contended, rightfully criticizing the tone of the press coverage. “They would have been talking for weeks about this tremendous defeat.”
But then Trump made a claim that, if not debunked by other party leaders, could reflect an attitude that would hurt Republicans moving forward. Wrapping up his media criticism, Trump concluded that Handel “won by a lot.”
The comment was brief, but it’s important for the party to be cautious about the win in Georgia and not act as though nothing has changed in the district.
I’ve argued many times that, given the record-setting money spent on the race, it was not a fair bellwether of midterm outcomes.
Ossoff, the beneficiary of a party desperate to humiliate Trump, had significantly more money and resources than his opponent. That cannot be understated. But everything is relative, and when you consider that Tom Price won more than 60 percent of the vote in his race for the seat just last November, a more-than-20-point margin of victory, Handel’s almost 4-point margin can hardly be considered winning “by a lot.”
That the race was as close as it was in a district as reliably-Republican as Georgia’s 6th, even given Ossoff’s massive campaign war chest, is something for the GOP to consider. It’s not the lead story from the race, but it’s nothing to gloss over either.
This isn’t to say Handel’s comparatively small margin of victory is a harbinger of midterm trouble for Republicans, it’s only to say, at least in this district, the party should probe why their candidate’s margin of victory dropped roughly 15 points in seven months. Money is not the only reason.
Trump has a penchant for overstating electoral victories, and that’s to be expected at this point. But this is one overstatement that could actually have real consequences for Republicans down the line.
Emily Jashinsky is a commentary writer for the Washington Examiner.
