Last Wednesday in Washington, U.S. Rep. Karen Handel was invited to lecture her fellow House Republicans and their strategists on how to win in a decidedly anti-Donald Trump climate.
Thirty-one Republicans have already announced their retirements rather than run for re-election to the U.S. House this year. A Democratic takeover of the chamber is a distinct possibility.
In a 2017 that ended with the election of a Democratic U.S. senator in Alabama, Handel’s Sixth District victory over an incredibly well-funded Jon Ossoff was a bright spot for the GOP. House GOP leaders believe it could prove to be a template for winning in districts where Hillary Clinton ran roughly even with or ahead of Trump in 2016. (Trump won the Sixth by 1.5 percent.)
So look for other Republicans to follow the Roswell Republican's example of suggesting that her Democratic opponent would be a creature of Nancy Pelosi and her "San Francisco values," Politico.com reported.
The tactic is likely to work in many packed congressional districts, but not all. In Georgia, Republican Rob Woodall’s Seventh District may be the most vulnerable come November.
Moreover, the “so’s your old lady” approach doesn’t speak to larger or smaller Republican contests: In races for governor and state legislatures, for instance, West Coast bugbears sink to the bottom of a voter’s worry list.
We’ve already seen other potential Republican approaches for surviving an anti-Trump backlash in Georgia. Ten days ago, in a pair of special elections, the GOP was able to hang onto two state legislative seats based in rapidly changing Henry County.
Henry County has one of the few truly biracial GOP operations in the state. But that has been hard to duplicate elsewhere.
No, the most likely author for “The Georgia GOP Guide to Surviving an Anti-Trump Tsunami” is Nathan Deal. Like ruling Democrats before him, the governor appears to have succeeded in developing a Georgia-specific party brand that is independent of – and insulated from – Washington.
The best evidence for this is the recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution poll that showed President Trump with an approval rate of 37 percent from Georgia voters. After seven years in office, Governor Deal won the approval of nearly 53 percent.
Generally speaking, after a single year, presidents still have a new car smell about them, while governors in the last year of the last term often fall victim to voter fatigue.
But in this poll, Deal had a 35 percent approval rating among Democrats. Think about that. A Republican governor scored almost as well with Georgia voters in the opposition party as a new Republican president did with the Georgia electorate as a whole.
In addition, Georgia voters apparently have become convinced that they live in an economy separate from the one that operates out of D.C. Nearly 64 percent expressed satisfaction with the direction of the state – compared to the 41 percent satisfied with the direction of the country.
“People are generally happy with Deal. Even the Legislature is more positive than negative,” said M.V. (Trey) Hood III, director of polling for UGA’s School of Public and International Affairs – which conducted the poll for the AJC. “There seems to be some sort of path forward if [Republicans] get out of Trump’s shadow and talk about state issues.”
The AJC poll didn’t indicate that Republicans candidates should pick fights with Trump. Roughly 85 percent of those who cast ballots for him in 2016 expressed satisfaction with the president’s first year in office.
But Deal’s numbers show that bombast isn’t the only style that will work for the crop of GOP candidates who want to replace him. That bodes well for Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and, to a lesser extent, Secretary of State Brian Kemp. As we get closer to May, the more and louder Trump founders, the better a traditional Republican conservative may look.
Eight years ago, Deal ran as the adult in the room. He has since, mostly, followed his own advice: Campaign as you would govern. He hasn’t allowed the gap between his rhetoric and his ability to deliver to become too vast, as a certain White House occupant has done.
Deal has had his failures. He opposed campus carry legislation, then caved. His ballot initiative on a plan to rescue troubled public schools crashed and burned, and he has had to abandon his goal of reformulating public-school funding across the state.
But voters don’t seem to begrudge his trying.
Perhaps most importantly, Deal may be benefiting from the way he has threaded the needle on “religious liberty” legislation and continued GOP discomfort with same-sex marriage. The governor has understood that in Georgia, economic insecurity outweighs cultural insecurity.
While they may like the direction the state is headed, Georgians are not yet financially comfortable enough to risk showing new businesses the door. Far from it.
Politically, we may not be done with the “outsider” movement within the GOP. But we may have seen the limits of its benefits. For years, on issues from ethics to “religious liberty’ legislation, state Sen. Josh McKoon, R-Columbus, railed against the powers in the Capitol. He is now one of four GOP candidates for secretary of state, and has called a truce.
"If I had to do the first seven years over, knowing what I know now, I would try harder to persuade people internally of my position before going out to the grassroots," McKoon told the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer.
Cagle, too, may be absorbing the “campaign to govern” lesson. Last week, his gubernatorial campaign sent out a press release with this headline: “Any Medicaid waiver should include work requirement.”
“I have long believed that work requirements for benefits build good faith with the taxpayers who fund these programs,” the lieutenant governor quoted himself as saying.
One can argue whether work requirements are actually effective.
The subtler point was that a GOP candidate for governor had just endorsed the drawing down of more federal dollars so that more people can receive health care in Georgia.
Under Republican rules of combat, one is not allowed to call that “expansion,” because the waivers under consideration would not adhere to Obama-era plans to offer insurance coverage to all who fall under 138 percent of the federal poverty level.
But it is something different.
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