Michael Barone of the Washington Examiner applies lessons from last week’s high-profile congressional special elections.
Georgia’s 6th District was significant because it’s a traditionally Republican district whose college-educated voters (59 percent of adults, sixth-highest in the country) were repelled by Donald Trump. Mitt Romney carried it 61 to 37 percent in 2012; Trump won it by only a 48.3-46.8 percent margin last year. That’s a huge shift from the persistent partisan patterns that have mostly held for two decades.
The good news for Democrats is that they were able to hold Handel to a Trumpish rather than the traditionally expected margin in such a district. The bad news is that there aren’t that many other Republican-held districts with a lot of highly educated voters.
Republicans hold only six of the 23 districts with college graduate majorities. Most were won years ago by Democrats in elections in which the persistent partisan patterns held true. Of the Republican-held districts where 40 percent or more of the voters are college graduates, only 14 were carried by Hillary Clinton last year.
These 14 seats — plus the four more that Trump carried by less than 5 percent — are obvious Democratic targets, and the result in Georgia suggests that Democrats could be competitive in many of them. But Democrats need a net gain of 24 seats for a House majority, and in good years, parties usually gain only half the seats they seriously target.
Moreover, Republican incumbents won 15 of these 18 seats by double-digit margins in 2016 despite the local Trump undertow. Most or all are running again, and though Democrats may try to field stronger opponents against many, the Georgia result won’t help recruitment.
