Jon Ossoff, the first-time Democratic congressional candidate, was defeated by Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel in Georgia's heavily-GOP 6th Congressional district.
In remarks to his staffers, Ossoff shared, "You showed the world that in places where no one even thought it was possible to fight, we could fight." Handel is now the first woman to have won a congressional seat in Georgia.
During the April 18 special election for Georgia's 6th Congressional District seat drew closer, Republicans in the normally conservative area got nervous when Ossoff, the 30-year-old first-time candidate, led the crowded 18-person field. In polling leading up to the election, he had been several percentage points away from gaining the necessary 50 percent of the vote to avoid a runoff.
Ossoff failed to reach 50 percent, garnering 48.1 percent of the vote and forcing a runoff election with Karen Handel, the Republican candidate with the most votes, on June 20.
"This is already a remarkable victory,” Ossoff said after the April 18 special election. “We defied the odds, shattered expectations, and now are ready to fight on and win in June.”
The seat was vacated by Tom Price, who now serves as secretary of health and human services. Both Republicans and Democrats viewed the election to replace him as a referendum on Donald Trump’s early presidency and a reflection of their chances in the upcoming midterm elections. The race attracted both national attention and a record amount of campaign cash, most of it flowing in Ossoff's direction.
Here’s what you need to know about Ossoff, who had been expected to lead a major wave of anti-Trump politicians seeking office.
1. He grew up in the district he wants to represent.
The district Ossoff wanted to represent covers Atlanta’s wealthy suburbs. Ossoff attended Paideia, an Atlanta private school. His mother, Heather Fenton, cofounded the NewPower Pac, which seeks to get women elected across the state of Georgia, and his father owns a publishing company.
Ossoff was an enthusiastic Ultimate Frisbee player in high school, his counselor John Stubbs told the New Yorker. He also launched a politics blog called the Speckled Pi, inspired by his opposition to the second Iraq War. "He read The Economist, my God, in high school," Paideia's headmaster told the New Yorker.
After high school, he graduated from Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and also received a master’s in international political economy from the London School of Economics, where his thesis was about trade relations between China and the United States. While studying in the U.K, Ossoff was a third baseman for the South London Pirates in the British Baseball Federation. The team Ossoff played on was in Britain's most competitive league.
2. But he doesn’t live in the district now.
Ossoff and his fiancée, Alisha Kramer, live just 10 minutes outside the 6th District so she can “walk to class at Emory University’s medical school,” the New Yorker reports. The two have been together for 12 years.
His political opponents have tried to use the fact that he lives outside the district against him. But the only residency requirement facing members of Congress is that they must be an inhabitant of the state where they are seeking office. They do not have to live in the district they want to represent. Ossoff had cited his deep ties to the district and said he and his fiancée will move into the district when she graduates medical school.
When Trump tweeted to get out the vote against Ossoff, he used the candidate's residency against him:
3. He has some political experience under his belt.
Ossoff, 30, was a first-time candidate but he does have political experience. He was a former staffer for Georgia Rep. Hank Johnson, who has endorsed his candidacy. Ossoff says his five years as a congressional aide taught him “how to get things done in Washington” and also gave him top-secret “security clearance while working with our military and intelligence community on counterterrorism, naval, air, and cybersecurity programs," Ossoff says on his campaign website.
When he was in high school, Ossoff interned for Rep. John Lewis, who is best known for his pioneering work in the civil rights movement. Today, Ossoff considers Rep. Lewis one of his mentors and says the congressman’s memoir only deepened his commitment to social justice. Ossoff says it was Lewis who encouraged him to run for the seat, saying, "if any Democrat can win the Sixth, you can," the New Yorker reports.
Lewis had enthusiastically endorsed Ossoff. “Jon is committed to progress and justice and he knows how to fight the good fight. We should unite behind Jon and send a clear message that Donald Trump doesn’t represent our values," Lewis said in a statement.
4. His film company is responsible for uncovering international corruption.
Ossoff is the CEO of Insight TWI, a small award-winning film company that investigates corruption in countries around the world. The company has partnered with investigative journalists who have uncovered crooked judges in Ghana and doctors in Zimbabwe selling HIV/AIDS medicine on the black market.
Ossoff did not start the firm, which has partnered with the likes of Leonardo DiCaprio, but he values his stake in the company at between $250,000 and $500,000, according to his financial disclosure forms. “Our mantra is name, shame and jail,” Ossoff told Heavy.com. “We seek not merely to report what’s happening, but we try to generate the evidence necessary to prosecute criminals and corrupted officials.”
5. He'd looked to turn a red district blue.
Before Ossoff’s candidacy, the congressional seat had been considered safely Republican for decades. Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich once held the seat in what is one of the wealthiest districts in Georgia.
Price, who won the seat in 2004, is an orthopedic surgeon and a member of the Tea Party, one of the most conservative branches of the Republican Party. He was a staunch opponent of the Affordable Care Act because he said it gave government too much say in an individual’s medical care and "violates all the principles all of us hold dear when it comes to health care.” When he was in Congress, Price introduced legislation to repeal the Affordable Care Act and replace it with age-based tax credits to purchase insurance. Price is also anti-abortion and against same-sex marriage.
The 6th District is a demographic outlier in Georgia. According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, 60 percent of voters in the district have college degrees versus 29 percent of voters in Georgia. The district also has about a 5 percent poverty rate compared to an 18 percent poverty rate for Georgia. The 6th District also has more white, Latino, and Asian voters than the rest of the state.
6. He ran a campaign focused against Trump but it wasn't all about the president.
Ossoff had hoped to ride a wave of anti-Trump sentiment into office in a district where congressional Democrats had not been competitive for some time now. "The grassroots intensity here is electric, and it’s because folks are concerned that what is happening in Washington doesn’t represent our values," Ossoff told Reuters in an interview. "This is a chance for this community to stand up and make a statement about what we believe."
The opposition to Trump had filled Ossoff’s campaign account with cash and helped him to create an enviable on-the-ground volunteer operation. But Ossoff told the New York Times the race is not all about Trump. “I’m not campaigning across the district talking about Donald Trump at every event,” he said. “There are many in this district who are concerned that the president may embarrass us on the world stage, that he may be incompetent and that he’s dishonest. I share those concerns, but by running a positive campaign focused on core American values, the contrast is obvious.”
Ossoff championed typically progressive issues such as defending Planned Parenthood and "women’s access to contraception and a woman’s right to choose." He also focused on working to protect some of the provisions of Obamacare like not allowing preexisting conditions to prevent coverage and allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ plan until age 26. On the economy, Ossoff said he will create "forward-looking, fiscally responsible economic policy that maximizes opportunity for entrepreneurs, workers, and investors."
7. His runoff opponent wasn't exactly pro-Trump.
Handel, in a campaign ad, referred to Ossoff as a "lightweight liberal" and Nancy Pelosi's "hand-picked candidate." She has also tried to tie Ossoff to higher taxes and Obamacare.
But Handel had not voiced unequivocal support for Trump. “As much as I support the president, there also has to be some willingness to be independent and stand up for what is best for the people of the Sixth District,” she told the New York Times.
8. He had raised more than $23 million.
The money ran in quickly for Ossoff, who has raised more than $23 million — more than any House candidate in history. The money mostly came from liberal, anti-Trump forces seeking to make a statement with an Ossoff victory. By comparison, Handel had raised $4.2 million.
9. His win would've been a major victory for Democrats.
“Flip the 6th" has become a rallying cry for Ossoff supporters and the candidate had asked voters to help him "Make Trump Furious."
But no Democrat has held that congressional seat for four decades now. Trump won the district by 1.5 percentage points but former Republican nominee Mitt Romney won the district by 23 points, according to the Washington Post. The seat was one of the first congressional seats up for a vote since Trump’s surprise victory, with at least five more to come around the country, and Democrats saw it as a test of whether they will be able to make gains in the upcoming midterm elections.
10. Because of that, the attacks against him were intense.
Republicans took the race seriously and poured millions into anti-Ossoff advertisements. The National Rifle Association ran ads saying Democrats want to "steal this election and your freedom," the Washington Post reported. The National Republican Congressional Committee and the Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC also ran ads.
Some of the campaign ads criticized Ossoff’s work producing a documentary for Al Jazeera. According to Ossoff's campaign finance disclosure, he received more than $5,000 in payment from the Qatar-based network for video content development and production. The attack ad invoked images of Osama bin Laden to insinuate that Ossoff shouldn't be trusted.
Mother Jones ripped the critique, along with the additional spending against Ossoff from Republican super PACs, as a sign that the GOP was worried about losing the seat.
Other ads tried to depict Ossoff as an immature rich kid for dressing up as Han Solo in college. The advertisement, paid for by the Congressional Leadership Fund, which is backed by House Republicans, said Ossoff is "not serious" enough and "not ready" to be a congressman based on his antics in college.
The advertisement also questioned Ossoff’s claim that he gained five years of experience in national security while working as a congressional staffer for Johnson and on Capitol Hill. “I was granted a top-secret clearance by the U.S. Department of Defense to work on particularly sensitive programs,” the Washington Post reported that Ossoff told journalists in March. “I stand by my record — I will put up my national security qualifications and credentials against anyone else in this race.” Politifact Georgia rated the statement as half-true because Ossoff was an undergraduate holding a part-time position during part of the five years in question. "That adds relevant context, and he left it out," the site said.
Ossoff had dismissed some of the criticism he's facing. "Predictable, cynical, partisan, negative politics, with a whiff of desperation," Ossoff told the Washington Post.
11. Both Ossoff and his opponent had spoken out against an ad using the Steve Scalise shooting against him.
In June, a conservative PAC aired an anti-Ossoff TV spot showing an image of Republican House Majority Whip Steve Scalise on a stretcher after being shot at a Republican baseball practice outside of Washington, D.C. The commercial's narrator says: “The unhinged left is endorsing and applauding shooting Republicans ... When will it stop? It won’t if Jon Ossoff wins on Tuesday.”
Ossoff called the politcization of the shooting "disgraceful," according to The Hill, and called for it to be taken down.
“The man is fighting for his life. I think it’s disgraceful to politicize it, and I think Secretary Handel should call for it to come down," Ossoff said. “You have a national tragedy that has united people. There are still people who are in critical condition. It's just got no place in an attack ad.”
Handel called the ad "disturbing and disgusting" in a release to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution but didn't call for its removal.
12. Even Trump has slammed Ossoff on Twitter.
On April 17, the day before the special election, Trump blasted Ossoff on Twitter as a "super Liberal Democrat" who wants to "protect criminals, allow illegal immigration and raise taxes."
And on the day of the special election, Trump went in once more, calling him "weak" on crime and immigration.
On April 19, the day after the special election, Trump celebrated the result, calling it a victory against Democratic influence from outside the district. He even gave himself some credit for recording a robocall that was sent out to residents before the election.
On June 19, Trump encouraged his Twitter followers to vote for Handel.
And after Handel's victory, Trump congratulated her on Twitter.
13. He attracted Republican support in the special election.
A new analysis of the April 18 election showed that Ossoff not only attracted Democrat support, but also a small, influential share of Republican support, according to Politico.
Optimus Consulting, a Republican data-analytics firm, conducted a voter-file analysis of the race and found that Ossoff gathered at least 8 to 10 percent of the Republican vote. Though people in Georgia don't officially register with a party, Optimus identified the voters using past primary turnout and other voter characteristics.
“Based on the final results of the jungle primary, most independents and a small but relatively sizable portion of Republicans voted for Jon Ossoff,” Alex Alduncin, an analyst with Optimus, told Politico.
However, Scott Tranter, an Optimus partner, said that the firm did not expect similar results in the runoff. “Generally speaking, losing more than 10 percent of your own party to the opponent is not a good trend, and Ossoff got close to that in the jungle primary,” Tranter told Politico. “We do not expect that to be the case in the runoff.”
14. He got engaged during the campaign.
According to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Ossoff proposed to his longtime girlfriend, Alisha Kramer, on May 5, as his campaign was preparing for a runoff election. His supporters congratulated him during a campaign stop the next day. He had previously responded to the engagement question on CNN, saying, “Well, I don’t want to give anything away. But I think I can reasonably say that’s more of a personal question.”
This article was originally published on April 12, 2017, and has been updated.
