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By Jon Ossoff By Jon Ossoff June 26 at 4:04 PM

Jon Ossoff is chief executive of Insight TWI and was the Democratic candidate for Congress in the special election for Georgias 6th Congressional District.

On Nov. 9, Americans awakened to a startling reality: In the absence of broad, enduring citizen engagement, the door is left open for darkness to creep in and gain a foothold in our democracy.

Amid that awakening, I launched my improbable campaign for Georgias 6th Congressional District.It grew into something bigger than I could have imagined.

Here in Georgia, in a district considered safe for Republicans for decades, we built a grass-roots organization powered by thousands of volunteers and hundreds of thousands of small-dollar donors.

The right wings national apparatus fully mobilized to defend the status quo in Washington at any cost. I was defeated. But we put up a hell of a fight.

Grass-roots politics, linking small-dollar fundraising to massive local volunteer organization, showed that it can rival the power of a right-wing machine comprising super PACs backed by entrenched interests and mega-donors. These outside groups were forced to spend nearly $20 million defending a seat gerrymandered never to be competitive.

From the beginning I believed that to compete in this district we had to run a different kind of campaign a campaign that put grass-roots organizing and personal contact with voters above all else. And our campaign tapped into and grew a grass-roots movement the likes of which Georgia had never seen before. This community stood up with undaunted fighting spirit, participating in the largest field program ever run in a U.S. House race and driving a get-out-the-vote effort that brought Democratic turnout in this special election up to general election levels.

The campaign reached out to tens of thousands of voters who had never heard directly from a campaign before. Some 10,000 more people voted for a Democrat in this off-year special election than did for Barack Obama in this district in 2012. Thousands of Democrats and new voters considered extremely unlikely to turn out made their voices heard.

The intraparty disputes that dominate national commentary on Democratic politics were nowhere to be found in the 6th District. On the ground, Democrats were committed to strike the first blow of this new era on behalf of decency and progress.

We ran an economy-first campaign centered on local prosperity and opportunity. I focused on the development of metro Atlanta into a world-class commercial capital, on affordable higher education and technical training, on research and development to drive innovation in Georgias tech sector, on renewal of our transportation infrastructure and a commitment to fiscal responsibility, on pointing out that taxpayers are rightfully upset that the federal government wastes hundreds of billions of dollars per year.

We paired this economic platform with an unwavering support for a womans right to choose, Americans with preexisting conditions, criminal-justice reform, Medicare and Medicaid, voting rights, immigration reform, lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights, anti-corruption efforts and U.S. leadership to fight climate change. We built a coalition that generated massive Democratic turnout, engaged communities long ignored by local political leadership, and final vote tallies will likely show that we won a majority of independents. And in districts like Georgias 6th, we will not compete unless we build coalitions.

I remained committed to civility and optimism throughout the campaign, and I remain committed to civility and optimism now. Hope, decency and unity are not mere catchwords. Theyre essential to the defense of our republic at a time when hatred and deception have become the dominant forces in American politics.

Its difficult to convey the depth of my gratitude to the hundreds of thousands of people who made this effort possible, giving new voice and agency to thousands of Georgians. In particular, the extraordinary determination and hard work of female activists here in Georgia was the beating heart of the campaign. The grass-roots organization that we built neighborhood by neighborhood is intact, battle-hardened and ready for the future.

We lost, but I am proud of the campaign we ran, and I am proud of my community for standing up against the odds. I launched this campaign believing that America can become stronger, more prosperous and more secure only if we stay true to the values that unite us. I still believe that, and Im not done fighting.

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Jon Ossoff: Lessons for Democrats from the Georgia election - Washington Post

As the night progressed, Bookers vigil on the steps attracted more and more senators. | Getty

By Seung Min Kim

06/26/2017 04:05 PM EDT

Updated 06/26/2017 11:11 PM EDT

Its time again for Senate Democrats to burn the midnight oil.

Senate Democrats launched yet another night of floor speeches on Monday night castigating the GOPs plan to repeal and replace Obamacare a talk-a-thon led by Sens. Patty Murray of Washington and Mazie Hirono of Hawaii that ran several hours after the Senates 5:30 p.m. votes.

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And while Democrats took turns taking the floor inside the chamber, a much more rambunctious rally was unfolding outside on the Capitol steps in the relatively cool June night. Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), along with Rep. John Lewis (D-Ga.), settled outside shortly after 7 p.m. and began streaming their talk blasting the GOPs efforts to dismantle the seven-year-old health care law.

As the night progressed, Bookers vigil on the steps attracted more and more senators, including Minority Leader Chuck Schumer of New York and Dick Durbin, the No. 2 Democrat, joined in. Several other Democratic senators including Sens. Chris Murphy of Connecticut, Brian Schatz of Hawaii, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, Bob Casey of Pennsylvania and Jeff Merkley of Oregon joined in for large chunks of the impromptu demonstration that attracted hundreds.

Right now, the biggest enemy we face is not a handful of senators blocking health care for millions, but its the silence of the many who have the power to do something about this, Booker said around 11 p.m. as the assembly was winding down. Remember, the power of the people is greater than the people in power let your voice be heard.

Murphy told the crowd that the senators didnt give anybody a heads up that several hundred people would gather at the Capitol steps. Booker urged the masses to Snapchat with the various senators who were there, adding: Extra points if you tell Durbin what a Snapchat is. And the normally soft-toned Casey roared to the group: The issue of health care is a matter of basic justice.

Light up the switchboard! Durbin roared to the group. Get on the phones dont be afraid to tweet.

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Earlier on the floor, kicking off the round of speeches Monday evening was Hirono, who recently underwent treatment for kidney cancer and has spoken about her diagnosis as shes made her case against Republican efforts to dismantle Obamacare. Hirono is having a second surgery on Tuesday for a lesion on her rib, a spokesman said.

Democrats are going to keep sharing our stories," Murray said, "and the stories of our constituents to make sure people understand how devastating and mean Trumpcare would be for the people we represent, and to do everything we can to keep up the pressure to stop it."

Ben Wikler, the Washington director for MoveOn.org, on Twitter urged other liberal activists to pack the galleries in the Senate chamber Monday night to show support for Democrats and their late-night speech marathon.

Democrats also led a round of floor speeches last Monday that ended shortly after midnight.

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Senate Democrats rally against GOP health-care bill - Politico

Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan called for Democrats to go on offense and attack the presidents perceived strength on economic matters with working-class voters.

We need to show working men and women we understand their anxieties and fears, she said, and show that Trump is treating them like just another politician.

By fiercely contesting a congressional race in the conservative Atlanta suburbs, Democrats had hoped to make an emphatic statement about the weakness of the Republican Party under Mr. Trump. Their candidate, Jon Ossoff, raised about $25 million, mostly in small donations, and assertively courted right-of-center voters with promises of economic development and fiscal restraint.

That vague message, Democrats said Wednesday, was plainly not powerful enough to counter an onslaught of Republican advertising that cast Mr. Ossoff as a puppet of liberal national Democrats, led by Ms. Pelosi, an intensely unpopular figure on the right and a longstanding target of Republican attacks. While Mr. Ossoff made inroads by exploiting Mr. Trumps unpopularity and a backlash against health care legislation approved in the House, Democrats said they would have to do more to actually win.

Representative Eric Swalwell of California, who is close to party leaders, said Democrats would crystallize our message on jobs, on health care in the coming months. The results in Georgia and other special elections, he said, should encourage Democrats to campaign across a huge map of districts. We need to compete everywhere, he said.

Representative Ben Ray Lujn of New Mexico, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, met Wednesday morning with a group of lawmakers who have been conferring about economic messaging, according to several people present who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Mr. Lujn told the group that his committee would examine the Georgia results for lessons, but he urged the lawmakers to portray the race in positive terms in their public comments, stressing that Democrats have consistently exceeded their historical performance in a series of special elections fought in solidly Republican territory.

It was in the meeting with Mr. Lujn that Mr. Crdenas, a member of the Democratic leadership, brought up Ms. Pelosis role in the Georgia race, calling it the elephant in the room. Ms. Pelosi was not present.

A spokeswoman for Mr. Crdenas, while acknowledging his comment, said he had invoked the leader in the context of what can be done to stand up to those attacks in the future.

Ms. Pelosi has consistently rejected calls to step down, and there was little indication that her leadership post was at risk. She responded to the election results in a Dear Colleague letter to Democratic lawmakers late Wednesday, underscoring the partys improving performance in conservative areas and saying that every effort was made to win in Georgia.

But Ms. Pelosi also said it was time for Democrats to put forth our message, and promised an economic one that we can all embrace and utilize in our districts.

She did not directly address the sometimes caustic criticism of her leadership from skeptics within the party. Several lawmakers who have opposed her in the past argued that Ms. Pelosi would undermine the partys candidates for as long as she holds her post.

Representative Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, an open critic of Ms. Pelosi, called the Georgia result frustrating and urged a shake-up at the top of the party.

Representative Kathleen Rice of New York told CNN the entire Democratic leadership team should go.

Representative Tim Ryan of Ohio, who tried to unseat Ms. Pelosi as House minority leader late last fall, said she remained a political millstone for Democrats. But Mr. Ryan said the Democratic brand had also become toxic in much of the country because voters saw Democrats as not being able to connect with the issues they care about.

Our brand is worse than Trump, he said.

A top aide to Ms. Pelosi dismissed the idea that her lightning-rod status might have hurt the Democratic effort in Georgia, and pointed out that in some polls the Republican speaker, Paul D. Ryan, is viewed even more dismally.

Any Democratic leader would become a target for the right, said the aide, Drew Hammill, Ms. Pelosis deputy chief of staff.

Republicans blew through millions to keep a ruby red seat and in their desperate rush to stop the hemorrhaging, theyve returned to demonizing the partys strongest fund-raiser and consensus builder, he said. They dont have Clinton or Obama, so this is what they do.

But in a possible omen, the first Democratic candidate to announce his campaign after the Georgia defeat immediately vowed not to support Ms. Pelosi for leader. Joe Cunningham, a South Carolina lawyer challenging Representative Mark Sanford, said Democrats needed new leadership now.

Even Democrats who are not openly antagonistic toward Ms. Pelosi acknowledged that a decade of Republican attacks had taken a toll: Its pretty difficult to undo the demonization of anyone, said Representative Bill Pascrell Jr. of New Jersey.

In some respects, the sniping over the Democrats campaign message mirrors a larger divide in the Democratic Party, dating to the 2016 presidential primary contest and earlier. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont and his supporters have pressed Democrats to embrace a more bluntly populist message, assailing wealthy special interests and endorsing the expansion of social welfare programs, while more moderate Democrats in the party leadership have favored an approach closer to Mr. Ossoffs.

But in four contested special elections in Republican districts including two, in Kansas and Montana, featuring Sanders-style insurgents neither method provided the party with a breakthrough victory.

In the absence of a smashing win that might have settled the left-versus-center debate, Democrats may face a longer process of internal deliberation before they settle on an approach that is broadly acceptable in the party.

Part of the Democrats challenge now is that the jobless rate is low, and many of the districts they are targeting are a lot like the Georgia seat: thriving suburbs filled with voters who have only watched their portfolios grow since Mr. Trump took office.

Even as they smarted from their defeat on Wednesday, Democrats signaled that they intend to compete across a vast area of the country in 2018. Mr. Lujn, moving to calm the party, circulated a memo to lawmakers and staff members that declared there was no doubt that Democrats can take back the House next fall in the midterm elections. He wrote that six to eight dozen seats held by Republican lawmakers would be easier for Democrats to capture than Georgias Sixth.

Citing snippets of private polling, Mr. Lujn said there were Republican seats in southern Arizona and Florida, northern New Jersey and the Kansas City, Kan., suburbs, where Democratic challengers were already ahead of Republican incumbents.

Democrats need to win 24 Republican-held seats to win control of the House.

On the Republican side, jubilation over the victory in Georgia mixed with lingering unease about the overall political environment. While Ms. Handel defeated Mr. Ossoff by about 10,000 votes and nearly four percentage points, Republican outside groups had to spend $18 million defending a district where the partys candidates had won easily for decades.

And on the same night, a little-watched special election in South Carolina gave Republicans another scare, as an obscure Democrat, Archie Parnell, came within 3,000 votes of capturing a solidly Republican congressional district, with voter turnout far behind the Georgia race.

Nick Everhart, a Republican strategist in Ohio, said the party should not allow its relief at having kept Democrats at bay to turn into complacency. Up to this point, he said, Republicans have been beating Democrats only on solidly red turf.

To pretend that there are not serious enthusiasm-gap issues with the G.O.P. base and, more crucially, independents fleeing, is missing the lessons that need to be learned before truly competitive seats are on the board, Mr. Everhart said.

Still, the immediate aftermath of the Georgia election was plainly tougher on the Democratic side, as the party endured a fourth special election that ended with a better-than-usual showing by a defeated Democrat. That pattern may put Democrats on track to gain power in the 2018 elections, but 17 months is a long wait for a party so hungry to win.

Emily Cochrane contributed reporting.

A version of this article appears in print on June 22, 2017, on Page A1 of the New York edition with the headline: Democrats Fume As Georgia Loss Deepens Discord.

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Democrats Seethe After Georgia Loss: Our Brand Is Worse ...

Mary Kate Cary, Opinion contributor 6:00 a.m. ET June 26, 2017

Top Democratic House leaders Nancy Pelosi and Steny Hoyer, March 24, 2017, Washington(Photo: Chip Somodevilla, Getty Images)

Roughly 80%of us now live in states either partially or totally controlled by Republicans. Two-thirds of our nations governors are now Republican tying a 94-year-old record and an all-time high 69 of99 state legislatures now have Republican majorities. In half of our 50 states, both the state legislature and the governorship are controlled by Republicans. And thats aside from the fact that Republicans control Congress and the White House and have appointed a majority of justices on the Supreme Court.

After four straight lossesin recent special elections for congressional seats,on top of more than 1,030 seats lost nationally by Democrats in state legislatures, governorshipsand Congress since 2009, the Democratic National Committee needs to figure out the cause of what can only be called the partys slow death.

Its time for the DNC to perform an autopsy.

The Republicans did the same thing in 2012 when they published the Growth and Opportunity Project affectionately known around Washington as The Autopsy. And while not everyone agreed with its recommendations, the authors were well-respected GOP leaders who called for changes to the partys messaging, demographic outreach, use of new technology and data, number of debates and primary schedule. The guy who ordered the autopsy is now White House chief of staff.

Georgia warning to Democrats: Trump isn't the answer. Yet.

Trump resistance will never be a Tea Party for Democrats

Sally Bradshaw, one of the co-authors, said in 2012, We have become expert at how to provide ideological information to like-minded people but, devastatingly, we have lost the ability to be persuasive with or welcoming to those who don't agree with us on every issue.

Say what you want about Donald Trump who was not a fan of the reports recommendations and disagrees with many traditional Republican policies but he brought millions of new voters to the GOP. He knew how to connect with the people he called forgotten Americans, many of whom had never voted Republican. Republican turnout in the primaries set a new record.

The massive loss of Democratic seats across the nation has meant the left is now without a pipeline of quality candidates. Exhibit A: Jon Ossoff, the progressive candidate in the Georgia special election, didnt even live in the district in which he was running. Apparently,there was no one in the district to recruit. Exhibit B: Rob Quist, the Democrat in Mays special election in Montana, was a banjo-playing songwriter who hasperformed at a nudist camp. Not that theres anything wrong with that.

The Democrats also have a policy problem. In an era of viciousattacks by the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, staggering national debtand menacing actions by North Korea, theyonly seem to want to talk about abortion rights, transgender bathroomsand gun control. Rich Lowry observed in Politicothat if Democrats had to choose between opposing an actual coup against Trump and endorsing a ban on abortion after 20 weeks, theyd probably have to think about it. I think hes right.

While 58% in a recent Washington Post-ABC News poll sayTrump is out of touch with the concerns of most people, an even higher percentage 67% sayDemocrats are. That includes 44% of Democrats themselves.

Heres another disconnect: The average age of the Democratic leadership in the House is 76; for Republicans, its 49. A recent headline from the liberal Huffington Post: Democratic leadership looks like old Soviet Politburo. That headline has the added benefit of being true: The average age of the Politburo before its collapse was only 70. Having California Rep. Nancy Pelosias the face of the Democratic Party is not a great strategy for winning the youth vote.

But I have a feeling there wont be any autopsy from the DNC. Instead, New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, head of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, predicted in a staff memo last week that Democrats would take the full House back in 2018. I am not making this up.

Democrats cant elect their own candidates: Your Say

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Why have a serious examination of whats gone wrong when you can keep tweeting #Resist, marching in pink hats, and cheering on Alec Baldwin? The left will keep Pelosi and New York Sen. Chuck Schumer in charge, theyll keep widening the disconnect with the middle class by fighting for policies that expand government and slow the economy, and theyll keep whistling past the graveyard.

The longer it takes for Democrats to call the coroner, the better for Republicans.

Mary Kate Cary, a former White House speechwriter for President George H.W. Bush, is a senior fellow for presidential studies at the University of Virginias Miller Center. Follow her on Twitter: @mkcary

You can read diverse opinions from our Board of Contributors and other writers on the Opinion front page, on Twitter @USATOpinion and in our daily Opinion newsletter. To submit a letter, comment or column, check our submission guidelines.

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Democrats will keep failing until they do their own autopsy - USA TODAY

In the wake of last weeks special congressional election in Georgia, on which Democrats spent more than $30 million only to come up short, some on the left have taken solace in the idea that the result was nonetheless a good portenta sign that Democratic candidates are poised to win the House next year.

The Georgia race, they point out, took place in a very Republican districtone that went for its Republican representative, Tom Price, by a 23-point margin last year. (Price triggered the special election when he took the job of health and human services secretary in the Trump administration.) Republican Karen Handel, by contrast, won by just 4 percentage points, 52 percent, compared to 48 percent for the Democrat, Jon Ossoff.

By that calculation, Ossoff knocked 19 points off the normal Republican margin, a staggering swing. If Democrats could knock 19 points off every Republican representatives winning margin in 2018, they would win a huge majority of seats in the House of Representatives. Republicans, by this logic, shouldnt be celebrating Handels win; they should be quaking in their boots.

It is, of course, not that simple. While Ossoff did come impressively close, Democrats are going to have to improve on his showing nationally if they hope to take the House next year.

For one thing, Georgias Sixth District isnt nearly as Republican as Prices margin of victory suggests. He was a popular incumbent who had represented the district for more than a decade; his Democratic opponent in 2016 was someone named Rodney Stooksbury, who got there by being the only person to file papers for the Democratic nomination. Stooksbury spent $0 on the race and ran no perceptible campaign. A local TV station that tried to track him down found that not even his neighbors had heard of him, and concluded, Voters question if Stooksbury even exists.

We can assume, then, that the 38 percent of the vote won by Stooksbury reflects the proportion of the districts voters who would vote for a ham sandwich if it had a D next to its name.

Meanwhile, at the top of the ticket, Donald Trump also won the district, but by a much narrower margin: He took about 48 percent of the vote to Hillary Clintons 47 percent. That means Ossoff performed only a point better than Clinton did, while Handel overperformed Trump by 4 points.

Could Democrats win the midterms by getting about the same proportion of the vote as Clinton did last year? She did, after all, win the popular vote. But because of uneven population distribution and the way the House districts are drawn, this would not be enough: Trump won 230 out of 435 congressional districts, more than the 218 required for a majority. (Because so many Republican candidates, like Price, did better than Trump, Republicans actually won 241 seats.)

By this metric, its clear that Democrats must do more than simply match Clintons vote share to win the House.

Clinton did unusually well in Georgias Sixth, which is home to a disproportionate number of the sort of voters Trump struggled with: affluent, college-educated white professionals. These kinds of districts, where otherwise Republican-leaning voters were turned off by Trump, are precisely the ones Democrats will be targeting in 2018. But in many of them, they will be up against popular, conventional Republican incumbentscandidates like Tom Pricemaking it all the more of an uphill battle.

There are more nuanced ways of looking at a given districts partisan tilt, such as the Cook Political Reports Partisan Voter Index, which gives the Sixth District a rating of R+8. By that measure, Ossoff overperformed more significantly, though he still didnt exceed expectations as much as the Democratic candidates in the other three, less-hyped special elections held this year, as David Wasserman explains. The PVI calculation, which takes more than one presidential election into account, may be more accurate in assessing a given districts baselineor it may fail to account for the degree to which Trump will be a factor next year.

All of this math is a bit apples-to-oranges. Turnout in a presidential election is different from turnout in a midterm election, which is different from special-election turnout. Its always a mistake to read too much into special elections; they are thermometers of the current political climate, not predictors of whats to come.

But theres one unavoidable fact: Democrats cannot win Congress in 2018 unless a substantial proportion of Trumps 2016 voters either switch their votes or decide to stay home. In Georgia, that didnt happen.

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Democrats Will Have to Do Better Than Ossoff - The Atlantic