Election News

Congressional special elections are being held today in Georgia's 6th district as well as the 5th district in neighboring South Carolina. The two seats have been vacant since the prior incumbents resigned to join President Donald Trump's administration. Polls in both states are open until 7PM, Eastern Time.

Georgia 6th District

In what we assume is the final poll to be released in advance of Tuesday's special election, Karen Handel leads Jon Ossoff by 50% to 49%. The poll was released by Trafalgar Group, who showed Ossoff with a three-point lead in their prior survey on June 15th. Although well within the margin of error, this is the first survey showing a lead for Handel since early May.

Ossoff leads by 1.8% in the polling average, although that falls to under 1% if we just look at the most recent polls. While it is distasteful to put it in political terms, there is a possibility that last week's shooting at a Republican baseball practice may be creating additional support for Handel. In a race this close, it could have an impact.

Two new polls released Friday indicate Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th district continues to be a nail-biter. While Jon Ossoff is at 50% and has a small lead over Karen Handel in both surveys, the spread is narrower than in several other recent polls. 

Landmark Communications gave Ossoff a two-point margin over Handel, 50% to 48%. The last Landmark survey, from June 8th, was 50% to 47% for Ossoff. Meanwhile, Opinion Savvy showed Ossoff with just a one-point lead, 50% to 49%. 

John Ossoff leads Karen Handel by 3 points in the latest poll of next Tuesday's special election runoff in Georgia's 6th Congressional District. The poll, conducted by Trafalgar Group, surveyed 1,100 likely voters with a 2.9% margin of error. Ossoff saw 50% support in the survey vs. 47% for Handel.

The 3 point Ossoff is consistent with the 270toWin polling average for the race. 

Atlanta's 11Alive reports that "with one week to go in the nation's most expensive congressional election in history, Karen Handel and Jon Ossoff are tied in the race to replace Tom Price..." The poll, conducted by SurveyUSA, has both candidates at 47%, with 6% undecided. This result is a notable improvement for Handel from an Abt Associates poll of the race from late last week, as well as the last SurveyUSA poll of the race three weeks ago. Both those showed Ossoff up by seven points.

Aside from the two results referenced above, most polls for this race have shown what today's does: For all the money poured into this special election, it remains a toss-up heading into the runoff next Tuesday. An average of the most recent survey by each of the four firms that have polled the race since May 1st gives Ossoff a three point lead.

Democrat Jon Ossoff leads by 7 points over Republican Karen Handel in the latest poll for Georgia's 6th district special election. The poll, conducted by Abt Associates for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, surveyed 1,000 registered voters. Ossoff's 51-44 lead is among a subset of 745 likely voters.

Ossoff's advantage may be in the poll's finding that "he’s capturing about 13 percent of Republican voters and 50 percent of independents – a crucial voting bloc that typically leans right in the state. It shows almost no cross-over on the flip side; only 3 percent of Democrats say they’re backing Handel. He gets support from 44 percent of white voters, a big number for a Democrat in Georgia."

Jon Ossoff leads Karen Handel by 2.5% in the closely watched Georgia 6th district race, a new poll finds. The survey was taken after Tuesday's debate between the candidates. Ossoff led by 1.5% in a survey released by the same pollster on June 2nd.

51% of those surveyed thought Ossoff won Tuesday's debate, while 37% gave the nod to Handel. The runoff is June 20th.

Democrat Jon Ossoff has raised $23 million in his quest to win the Georgia 6th congressional district special election. According to The Hill, that is a new fundraising record.

Will President Trump live-tweet to his 31.9 million followers during today's testimony by former FBI Director James Comey?  Here's an embed of his twitter account that should update whenever he tweets:

While 2020 is a long way off, we've launched a few updates to the interactive electoral map. 

• Individual District Splits for Maine & Nebraska: Previously, only two districts could be split for Nebraska, one for Maine. This is one fewer than the actual number of districts in each state. (Why?) For the 2016 election, we expanded the available colors/ratings on the map. This created an issue in Maine, where District 1 favored Clinton, District 2 leaned for Trump, and the overall state was rated somewhere in the middle. The updated functionality allows for this kind of split.

• 3rd Party Electoral Votes: While it faded by Election Day, there was a relatively high level of support for an alternative to the two major party nominees. For a brief while, it looked like Evan McMullin had a chance to win his home state of Utah. To support this, the map now allows for a state to be given to a generic 3rd party candidate. We'll add more functionality in this area if the 2020 campaign produces one or more viable (can win electoral votes) 3rd party candidates. 

• Specific 2020 Match-ups: Click or tap the displayed name just above the electoral counter to create a map based on specific Democratic opponents for Donald Trump. The list of names will be adjusted over time.

• (Coming Soon) Palette Mode: Currently, the map is adjusted by rotating through the ratings/colors via click or tap on a state. The palette mode will allow the selection of a rating/color; each state subsequently clicked or tapped will turn to that rating/color. Both palette mode and the rotation mode will be available.

To choose the number of colors/ratings in your map, as well as whether to include the 3rd party in the rotation, select 'Map Options' which is alongside the share buttons below the map.