Georgia special election: Never-Trump Republicans finally have a chance for revenge

Updated by Jeff Stein Jun 20, 2017, 7:30am EDT

Abigail and John Pilger call themselves fiscal conservatives. They’ve voted for House Republican candidates for decades. Both have even donated money to previous campaigns of Karen Handel, the Republican candidate in Georgia’s upcoming special election. But on Tuesday, the Pilger family plans to cross party lines to do something they once considered unthinkable — voting to elect a Democrat to Congress.

“Handel is a Republican, and I don’t want a Republican representing my district in this era and in these times,” said Abigail Pilger, 73, in an interview at a Starbucks.

Traditionally Republican voters like the Pilgers are essential for understanding why Democrat Jon Ossoff, 30, even has a chance Tuesday in a district that Rep. Tom Price won by more than 20 points this fall, and that Democrats haven’t held for decades.

Though in the heart of ruby-red Georgia, Hillary Clinton came within a point of winning the district. That’s largely thanks to the affluent, educated suburban voters who swung away from the Republican Party across the country in 2016 and do not like Donald Trump. In the Republican primary, Trump lost every county in the Sixth District — one of the wealthiest and best-educated in the state — even as he won the state overall.

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https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/20/15832590/never-trump-republicans-ossoff