President Trump is extremely invested in the Georgia special election
When President Trump sends a single tweet out about a subject, it means it has his attention. Multiple tweets suggest a fixation, and on Monday, the president devoted two of his patented 140-characters-or-less dispatches — plus a robocall — to the Georgia special election and the "super liberal" candidate looking to represent the 6th congressional district.
Trump sent his first tweet out on Monday morning, declaring — without naming frontrunner Jon Ossoff — that a "super Liberal Democrat in the Georgia Congressioal [sic] race tomorrow wants to protect criminals, allow illegal immigration, and raise taxes!" Ossoff quickly released a statement saying he was "glad" Trump was paying attention to the race, but was "misinformed. I'm focused on bringing fresh leadership, accountability, and bipartisan problem solving to Washington to cut wasteful spending and grow metro Atlanta's economy into the Silicon Valley of the South."
Residents of the 6th congressional district, until recently represented by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, began receiving robocalls from Trump on Monday afternoon in which Trump claimed that "liberal Democrats from outside of Georgia are spending millions of dollars trying to take your Republican congressional seat away from you." (Republicans are spending millions from outside Georgia to defeat Ossoff, too.) Should Ossoff win, Trump warns, he'll "raise your taxes, destroy your health care, and flood our country with illegal immigrants." He revisited the race on Twitter Monday night, taking a different, expectations-lowering approach: "With eleven Republican candidates running in Georgia (on Tuesday) for Congress, a runoff will be a win," he said. "Vote 'R" for lower taxes & safety!"
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If Ossoff or any of the other 17 candidates receive more than 50 percent of the vote, they will win the seat vacated by Price. With many saying an outright Ossoff win in this reliably conservative district would be a major blow to the president, it's no surprise Trump is pulling for a runoff election in June.
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Catherine Garcia has worked as a senior writer at The Week since 2014. Her writing and reporting have appeared in Entertainment Weekly, The New York Times, Wirecutter, NBC News and "The Book of Jezebel," among others. She's a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.
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