Jon Ossoff Recalls Sanders vs. Clinton Debate: A Look At His Politics

The special House election to win Georgia’s sixth district on Tuesday has been an uphill battle for Democrats trying force some kind of referendum on the election of President Donald Trump. The race also highlighted a battle within the Democratic party as it decides how liberal it wants to be — one familiar to the party rift between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders supporters in 2016 presidential election.

The Democrat in the race, Jon Ossoff, is a 30-year-old one-time congressional aide and filmmaker trying to win a seat in a very red district. Tom Price, who left the seat to become Trump’s secretary of Health and Human Services, won his 2016 race by 23 percent according to ESPN’s FiveThirtyEight. The seat has been Republican for four decades.

READ: Bernie Sanders Says Democrats Need To Do More Than Just Criticize Trump

Ossoff’s hope of taking the seat lies in close polls, the fact that Trump only won the district by only 1.5 percent and national invigoration of Democrats. That national fervor, however, comes in two flavors.

Independent Vermont Senator Sanders' surprise rise to power in the 2016 presidential election ushered in a voice of liberalism within the party calling for single-payer health care and free college tuition.

“The current model and the current strategy of the Democratic Party is an absolute failure,” said Sanders at the People’s Party summit Jun 10, the New York Times reported last week. “The Democratic Party must finally understand which side it is on”

Ossoff’s vision is different.

Ossoff did not support raising taxes, even on the wealthy, and he did not support a move to a single-payer health care system, according to the Times. He also has not thought about whether he would vote for Nancy Pelosi, Democratic House minority leader, in a bid for House Speaker.

These more centrist ideas come from the beneficiary of over $23 million, mostly in outside money, in one of the most expensive House races ever.

Sanders caused a stir in April when he said he didn't know if Ossoff was liberal after already endorsing him.

"If you run as a Democrat, you're a Democrat. ... some Democrats are progressive and some Democrats are not," Sanders said to the Wall Street Journal.

Even though the more liberal wing of the party wants to pull Democrats left, they are facing a lot of races with traditionally more conservative voters. Flipping Georgia’s sixth district would be an upset, and despite doing better than in the past, the Democrats lost two special elections in red districts this year in Kansas and Montana.

Another special House election Tuesday in South Carolina is an attempt to flip the seat held by Mick Mulvaney before he was ushered into the Trump administration. Mulvaney was a founding member of the far-right Freedom Caucus of the House.

READ: What Is Bernie Sanders Doing Now? Vermont Senator Fighting Trump, Revamping Democratic Party

Later this year there will be a special Senate election in Alabama to replace Republican Attorney General Jeff Sessions and House election to replace Republican Jason Chaffetz.

A proxy war between the Sanders faction and more Clinton-esque Democrats played out in Virginia’s gubernatorial primary race this week. Democratic voters chose Ralph Northam — the lieutenant governor who is endorsed by more centrist Democrats like Senator Tim Kaine, Clinton’s running mate — over Sanders-backed Tom Perriello.