Elections Ossoff falls short of win, Georgia election heads to runoff Republicans prevented a loss in a GOP-friendly district Tuesday, but they still face a fight in the runoff.

Georgia Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old political novice, fell just short of a shocking victory in a House race that captured the attention of the political world as a referendum on President Donald Trump.

The results left Democrats hoping for an upset deflated at the ballot box once again, but Ossoff will get another crack at the district in a June runoff, when relieved Republicans are looking forward to a one-on-one race between Republican Karen Handel and the upstart Democrat.


Ossoff had 48 percent of the vote when The Associated Press declared that he would miss the 50 percent threshold for victory and instead qualify for a one-on-one runoff in June. The AP also declared that Handel, Georgia’s former secretary of state, qualified for the runoff with a second-place finish. Handel took 20 percent of the vote in the race for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, left open by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who had held the seat since 2004 without a serious challenge. Handel received nearly twice as many votes as the next-highest candidate, fellow Republican Bob Gray.

The finish will disappoint Democrats, who hoped Ossoff would capture the district Tuesday behind a wave of party enthusiasm for the opportunity to send a message to Trump in the special election. They have to settle for another shot in two months. This time, though, district voters will face a binary choice between Ossoff and a Republican opponent instead of an 18-candidate primary, which allowed Ossoff — one of the best-funded House candidates ever, raising over $8.3 million thanks to hundreds of thousands of small donations from Democrats around the country — to rise far above a splintered field.

“We will be ready to fight on and win in June if it is necessary,” Ossoff told his supporters Tuesday night before the race was called. “And there is no amount of dark money, super PAC, negative advertising that can overcome real grass-roots energy like this. So bring it on.”

Handel called for Republican unity as she claimed victory.

"Tomorrow we start the campaign anew,” she said, according to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “Beating Ossoff and holding this seat is something that rises above any one person."

And both parties quickly sought to spin the inconclusive results as a major win for their side — as well as a statement on Trump’s popularity and the national political mood. Ossoff hailed the night as a “victory for the ages,” while Trump weighed in on Twitter to call the result a “big ‘R’ win.”

Republicans believe that once their party base coalesces behind a single candidate, they will be able to beat Ossoff. Gray, one of Handel’s toughest GOP opponents, was quick to line up behind her Tuesday night.

“We are going to rally behind Karen Handel,” tweeted Gray, who was backed by the Club For Growth, which aired TV ads attacking Handel. “We wish her Godspeed.”

“In a one-on-one race over a nine-week period," Ossoff will "have to answer questions he didn’t have to answer in the primary, like any issue on policy, on Syria, on tax reform. That becomes a lot harder for him,” said Chip Lake, a Republican consultant in the state. “When there’s 18 people in a race, it’s a bar brawl, and no one knows what to look at. But when it’s one-on-one, it’s easier for voters to understand and easier to define it.”

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Already, Ossoff has faced millions of dollars in attacks from Republican outside groups, which sounded the alarm that he was a threat to win the district last month after he began advertising heavily on TV. Three weeks ago, the National Republican Congressional Committee started spending $2.2 million on ads, casting Ossoff as “too liberal” for the district and a “rubber-stamp” for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

Congressional Leadership Fund, the major GOP super PAC focused on House races, also switched its message from early ads mocking Ossoff for dressing up as Han Solo in college. The later ads attacked Ossoff on his résumé, saying he inflated his credentials as a national security staffer for Rep. Hank Johnson.

Republican candidate for Georgia's Sixth Congressional seat Karen Handel waves speaks at an election night watch party in Roswell, Ga., on April 18. | AP Photo

The attacks held Ossoff back in a district Trump carried by less than 2 percentage points in the 2016 presidential race. Trump's margin, a sharp departure from Republicans’ usual double-digit wins, signaled an opening to Democrats looking for silver linings after Hillary Clinton’s devastating loss. Ossoff became a vessel for Democratic backlash against the president, raising millions from donors around the country who saw the special election as an opportunity to hurt Trump politically.

A nationalized race could continue to benefit Ossoff, said former GOP Rep. David Jolly, who said he saw parallels between the current situation in Georgia and the special election he won in Florida in 2014.

“For my race, it was Obamacare. It was a clearly nationalized race about Obamacare. For Ossoff, it will be the first 100 days of Donald Trump,” Jolly said. “The Republican in the runoff will have to struggle to figure out, is it my job to defend Trump, who has a historic unpopularity right now, or is it not? But Ossoff gets to talk nonstop about how the last 100 days are bad.”

It could also spell trouble for Republicans in 2018, as Trump continues to struggle with well-educated, suburban voters, a “trend line” the GOP should “be very worried” about, said Ian Russell, former deputy executive director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

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“While folks would’ve loved to win this, it’s absurd that it’s even talked about as a possibility and it shows how far Republicans have fallen that they’re panicking that a 30-year-old staffer didn’t win it outright,” Russell said. “This is not about one House seat; this is a trend. The kind of voters Republicans have alienated because of Trump’s behavior and the Republican Congress — that is a huge problem for them in suburban districts.”

Trump took a personal interest in the special election, tweeting attacks about Ossoff several times in the closing days of the race, saying he would be “weak on crime” and “raise taxes.” In an effort to boost GOP turnout, Trump also recorded a robocall urging voters to prevent Democrats from “[taking] your Republican congressional seat away from you.”

“Don’t let them do it,” he added.

As the final results trickled in early Wednesday morning, Trump took to Twitter once more.

“Despite major outside money, FAKE media support & eleven Republican candidates, BIG ‘R’ win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help!” Trump tweeted.