Story highlights The husband of Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel shared an image on his Twitter timeline Tuesday that urged voters to support his wife in order to "free the black slaves from the Democratic plantation."

"Like many of us, he (Steve) made a mistake and retweeted something he didn't pay a lot of attention to, thinking it was just an absentee vote message," a campaign spokesperson said.

(CNN) The husband of Republican congressional candidate Karen Handel shared an image on his Twitter timeline Tuesday that urged voters to support his wife in order to "free the black slaves from the Democratic plantation."

Handel's husband, Steve Handel, shared the image in the form of a quote-tweet, in which he shared the tweet of another user who initially posted the image and added his own commentary. In a statement to CNN's KFile on Tuesday, Handel's campaign said her husband hadn't paid attention to what was said in the original tweet.

"Like many of us, he (Steve) made a mistake and retweeted something he didn't pay a lot of attention to, thinking it was just an absentee vote message. It clearly was not appropriate and has been deleted," a campaign spokesperson said.

Handel is running to replace former Rep. Tom Price, who resigned his seat to become Health and Human Services Secretary. She's locked in a tight race in the runoff election with Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff.

The image, shared by user @rose10052, featured a stock image of young black man in a suit with white text.

Read More