The hotly contested House race between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff is attracting presidential-level interest in Georgia.
Ninety-two percent of voters in the recent Atlanta Journal Constitution poll said that they are following the House race closely, including 64 percent who said they were watching the special election “very closely” ahead of the June 20 vote. And 52 percent of voters in the district said they thought the race was more important than past elections, with another 45 percent saying the special election was equally important.
The level of interest far exceeds what is typical for House races. Even at peak levels of interest in 2010, the Pew Research Center found that only 30 percent of voters were following that year’s midterm elections closely. Other hotly contested midterm elections in 2006 and 2014 barely garnered 20 percent of people who said they were following the election closely, according to Pew.
