Embattled Democrats couldn’t catch a break on Wednesday: not only did the party go 0-5 in a series of special elections for the House of Representatives, but the Democratic National Committee disclosed that it raised just $4.3 million last month – its worst tally for the month of May since 2003, when the DNC raised just $2.7 million.
Meanwhile, the party’s bundlers plowed money into the special election campaign of Jon Ossoff, who lost his bid for Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price’s old seat in Georgia’s 6th Congressional district.
Ossoff’s defeat echoed the failure of the Clinton campaign: Ahead of the vote, pollsters and party leaders assured the public that Ossoff's strong polling in a staunchly red district was emblematic of the public's dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.
Instead, Republican Karen Handel carried the day, defeating Ossoff by a comfortable margin of more than 10,000 votes. The loss was especially demoralizing for Democrats, who’d hoped that a victory in a staunchly red district would cement the party’s chances of winning a majority in the House during next year’s midterm election.
Ossoff’s defeat appears to have ended the 31-year-old’s burgeoning political career before it could truly begin. Ossoff, a documentary filmmaker and former political aide, garnered national attention with his aggressively anti-Trump rhetoric, epitomized by his slogan, “Make Trump Furious.”
Unfortunately for the Democrats, Ossoff’s defeat was remarkable for all the wrong reasons. As we reported last night, Ossoff spent a staggering $22 million dollars - or about $176 per vote - versus only $3 million for Handel. In the past, candidates vying for Georgia’s sixth district have typically spent about $1 million. In fact, rather than losing ground since Trump moved into the White House, Republicans actually performed better.
In terms of fundraising, the Republican National Committee fared far better than DNC last month, raising $10.8 million, a record amount for an off year. As one might expect, Democratic leadership refused to take responsibility for Ossoff’s crushing defeat, as the Hill reports…
“DNC Chairman Tom Perez defended the party's fundraising in April, noting that he had just taken over at the helm of the organization. In an NBC interview, Perez was asked about his progress on his goal of doubling the DNC's budget from $50 million to $100 million in 2017.
"Well again, I got there on March 1. And so, I was the first to say, 'We have a lot of rebuilding to do,'" Perez told NBC's Hallie Jackson.
The decline in fundraising looks like a startling new trend: The DNC brought in $4.9 million, making it the worst fundraising April for the DNC since 2009.
Trump mocked Ossoff during a victory-lap rally in Cedar Rapids, Iowa Wednesday evening. “They spent close to $30 million on this kid who forgot to live in the community he was running in,” Trump said.
Though Ossoff was allowed to run for the 6th district seat despite his lack of residency, he wasn’t able to vote for himself. After Democrats identified the race as a must-win for the party, out-of-state cash came flooding into Ossoff’s campaign coffers, transforming his candidacy into the most expensive race in the history of the House, according to the Hill.