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BoscoX -> Special election sweep boosts Trump agenda (6/22/2017 10:40:06 AM)
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http://thehill.com/homenews/house/338892-special-election-sweep-boosts-trump-agenda
The Republican sweep of four contested House special elections this year has handed President Trump and his party a much-needed boost to move a healthcare bill and perhaps more of their stalled legislative agenda.
GOP officials in Washington breathed a sigh of relief after their candidate, Karen Handel, fended off Democrat Jon Ossoff in a Georgia runoff election Tuesday night — a race that Democrats had poured tens of millions of dollars into and billed as a referendum on the unpopular president and his policies.
Republican Ralph Norman on Tuesday defeated Democrat Archie Parnell by an even narrower margin — a little more than 3 percentage points — in a South Carolina race that received far less national attention.
If energized Democrats had claimed either of those long-held GOP seats, they could have argued that even traditionally red seats are in play in 2018 and Republicans who back Trump’s agenda do so at their own peril.
But the GOP’s perfect 4-0 contested special-election record in 2017 now gives Capitol Hill Republicans some cover to pass their ObamaCare repeal-and-replace bill, a major tax-reform package and other legislative priorities. And the media will shift its focus from the special elections back to policy, lawmakers said, even as the Russia investigation continues to dominate the headlines.
“It certainly boosts Republican morale,” said Rep. Tom Cole (Okla.), a former chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the House GOP’s campaign arm.
“There are local reasons [why Ossoff lost]. He didn’t live in the district,” added Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.). “But I think it bodes well for the president’s agenda for now.”
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