ROSWELL, Ga. | Democrats in this normally GOP-leaning region of Georgia say President Trump has finally helped them come out of the political closet, freeing them to declare their allegiances without fear.
After years of feeling like outcasts in the ruby-red 6th Congressional District, steering clear of political conversations for fear of blowback for their liberal stances, Democrats flocked to the polls Tuesday to try to elect one of their own for the first time in nearly 40 years.
It’s all a part of the Trump effect on American politics and the “Resistance” he’s spawned.
“I have been like a closet Democrat for the 15 years that I have lived here, and I didn’t think there was anybody else. I thought I was of a small population,” said Jennifer Keeney, a 40-year-old mother of three girls who waved signs outside a polling place here Tuesday. “After the Nov. 8 election, my friend invited me to be part of a liberal women’s group, and I was like, ’Wait, there’s that?’”
Ms. Keeney said she used to get heckled “all the time” for having an Obama sticker on her minivan. Now, however, she sees Democrats gaining a foothold, with John Ossoff, her party’s candidate, locked in a tight race with Republican Karen Handel.
“Now that we have a sense of community, it is like this big grass-roots movement here, and everyone is already talking about what we are going to do next,” she said.
Results came too late for this edition.
Marla Cureton, 47, said she has been waiting to see this sort of activism, which she said amounted to “a win regardless of the outcome of the election.”
“Particularly white residents of this area that have held Democratic, liberal ideals have been silent, and this has given them a voice and comfort level to speak out,” said Ms. Cureton, who is black. “There was almost always an assumption that people were conservative in certain circles.”
Despite Mr. Trump’s victory in the November election, Democrats have long touted the idea that Georgia is poised to trend in their direction thanks to changing demographics — including in this district, which Mr. Trump carried by less than 2 percentage points in the November election.
For Eric Elmassian, a Republican voter here, that was worrisome. He said he lived first in Southern California and then Denver, but fled in part because of the wave of liberalism that swept both regions. He moved to Georgia to “get away from all that crap that was going on there, politically wise.”
“Now I am over here, where it is nice and red, how I like it. But now we are getting influences from out of state so they can play the stupid game of poking at Trump or just making sure they can get the seat,” the 51-year-old said, directing his ire at national Democratic and allied groups that invested millions of dollars on behalf of Mr. Ossoff. “You guys screwed up California; you screwed up Denver.”
The race Tuesday was Democrats’ last good chance to strike an electoral blow against the GOP. Democrats failed in special congressional elections in Kansas and Montana, and were expected to lose another race Tuesday in South Carolina.
That left the Georgia seat, left vacant by former Rep. Thomas Price, who became health secretary in the Trump Cabinet.
The candidates and their allies have spent more than $50 million on the Georgia race, making it the most expensive House contest in history.
Mr. Ossoff fell just shy of 50 percent in the April “jungle primary,” forcing a runoff with Ms. Handel, who came in second in a race with just one major Democrat but numerous high-profile Republicans.
Allen Lundy took solace in the outcome, saying the fact that Democrats collected roughly half of the primary vote showed the district should no longer be labeled by the media as “conservative.”
“Jon won 47-plus percent of the primary vote in April — that’s a tossup district,” said Mr. Lundy, 66. “Yes, it has been conservative for 30 years, but the shift in demographics is inexorable. That is changing things all over the country, and particularly here.”
In the run-off race, Mr. Ossoff tried to identify Democrats that did not turn out in April and cast himself as a centrist — steering clear of taking potshots at Mr. Trump — in hopes of wooing independents and Republicans.
GOP strategists say there has been an influx of young entrepreneurs and families that have moved here that seem to be less hard-core conservative than the typical 65-plus crowd that has called the district home.
The political impact, though, has been hard to decipher because the last competitive congressional race here was the 2004 Republican primary, in which Mr. Price defeated state Sen. Robert Lamutt by eight points.
Mr. Prince won his sixth term last November by 23 percentage points, and even that was by far his closest general election result; twice the Democrats didn’t even put up a nominee.
“If you have an incumbent that wins a district by 20 points, it may not only be because he is a conservative Republican, it is also because he is an incumbent,” said Jay Williams, a GOP strategist, adding that the race could provide a clear picture. “My guess is the district has not been trending up Republican or conservative Republican.”
Lyndon Sidelinger, who voted for Ms. Handel, cautioned Democrats against reading too much into the outcome of the race, dismissing the notion that the district is undergoing a political transformation, and saying that Ms. Handel was not the strongest of candidates.
“I wouldn’t say the district has changed,” he said, blaming the nature of special elections for the seeming Democratic surge here.
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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