Saturday night voters decided to make Delaware the first state to turn a local special election into a referendum on Trump and his incompetent and extremist regime. Democrats won back the majority in the Delaware state Senate by convincingly winning a suburban district in New Castle County. Democrat Stephanie Hansen beat Trump fanatic John Marino by a much wider margin than anyone expected– or that history predicted. Note: Marino’s campaign slogan was “Make Delaware First Again."
Hillary had won the district 54% to 41% and the last time Marino ran for the state Senate seat there he nearly won-- 51-49%. But with both sides focusing on Trump, Hansen benefited from a turn out over double what is normal for a special election. She built on Hillary's win and annihilated Marino 7,314 (58.13%) to 5,127 (40.75%).
There are special elections coming up in Los Angeles, Georgia, Kansas, Montana and South Carolina. In L.A., proven progressive state legislator Jimmy Gomez is running in a wide open primary with 23 candidates, many of whom are decent enough but none of whom have the experience to craft and pass cutting edge progressive legislation like he has. And two of the best-financed of the 23 are shills for the Charter School billionaires. In deep blue districts like CA-34, Republicans aren't a factor-- Charter School shills are the stand in for the GOP.
The other 4 special election districts are all in deep red territory where Trump has given the local Representatives jobs in his regime. The most crucial of them is in the suburban district north of Atlanta where current Health Secretary Tom Price is being replaced. It isn't a district that the DCCC has contested in living memory. But-- without campaigning there once-- Hillary turned Romney's 61-37% win over Obama to a near tie: 48.3% to 46.8%. Voters in GA-06 didn't like Trump in the Republican primary-- Rubio won (41.6% to Trump's weak 26.6%)-- didn't like him in November and don't like him now.
Current polling shows Jon Ossoff with the most support of any of the candidates in the jungle-style primary coming up April 18. He is likely to wind up in a June 20 runoff against one of the very radical right Republicans, either anti-Choice fanatic Karen Handel, former state Senator Judson Hill or crackpot Trump crony Bruce LeVell. Ossoff, a former congressional staffer for civil rights icon John Lewis, who has endorsed him, is benefiting from a wave of enthusiasm from Georgians and other Americans who oppose Tom Price's and Paul Ryan's plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act and debilitate Medicaid and Medicare.
Blue America has enthusiastically endorsed Gomez in CA-34 and Ossoff in GA-06-- as well as 4 progressives running for winnable Republican-held districts in 2018-- Tom Guild in Oklahoma, Geoff Petzel in Illinois, Tom Wakely in Texas and Doug Applegate in California.
Please consider helping us keep up the momentum from last night by contributing to the campaigns of these progressive Democratic candidates today.
