One of the main Tuesday night election runoff surprises was state Rep. Matt Gurtler losing by a wide margin (56 to 44 percent) for the Republican U.S Congressional 9th District Republican nomination. Observers InsiderAdvantage talked with would not have been surprised if he had lost narrowly (he only had a two-and-a-half-point lead over opponent Andrew Clyde in Round 1 in June) but 12 points is stunning.
It would be ironic if gun dealer Clyde successfully portrayed Gurtler as the “establishment” candidate. But with the Washington-based Club for Growth spending generously on TV ads on behalf of Gurtler, maybe Clyde was able to make case that Gurtler would be controlled by “Washington insiders.”
Also, Gurtler is a young man in his early 30s in a district where a lot of counties have high elderly percentages. Some on social media argued he was “too young” to be going to Congress.
Interestingly, former Gov. Nathan Deal was age 50 when elected to the same congressional district in 1992, while Doug Collins was in his mid-40s when he got the seat in 2012.
