Republican Karen Handel has won Georgia’s special election, holding off the most well-funded House candidate in history and deflating Democrats who yearned for a special election rebuke to President Donald Trump.

Handel, who previously served as Georgia’s secretary of state, had 52 percent of the vote to Democrat Jon Ossoff’s 48 percent when the Associated Press called the race late Tuesday night after a six-month campaign in which Republicans hammered Ossoff as an ill fit for a traditionally conservative district.


With her win, Handel protected Republicans’ 24-seat House majority and their hold on the 6th District in Atlanta’s northern suburbs, a longtime GOP seat that looked to be slipping from the party when Trump only carried it by 2 points in November. Democrats, spying an opening, poured millions of dollars into the special election when former Rep. Tom Price resigned to join Trump’s cabinet as the secretary of Health and Human Services. Ossoff, a former congressional aide and documentary filmmaker, captured the anti-Trump fervor coursing through the Democratic Party and raised over $23 million for his campaign.





But Trump is not the only unpopular politician in the country, and Republicans once again used House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi as a bogeyman in a major House race, linking Ossoff to her in TV ads, in door-to-door conversations with voters and even in the televised debates between Ossoff and Handel.

"On April 18 I said this was going to be a very very tight race, it was going to be contentious, it was going to require all hands on deck, and that's exactly what we had," Handel told cheering supporters after her win.

While Handel’s victory only brings the Republican House majority back to its baseline level after the 2016 election, it denied Democrats a momentum boost toward the 2018 midterms and a victory that party activists dearly seek after five months of GOP control in Washington. The GOP has now won each House special election of 2017, after Trump selected a handful of congressmen from conservative seats for his Cabinet — though Republicans had a close call in South Carolina Tuesday night, where Republican Ralph Norman won the state’s 5th District by a surprisingly close 3-point margin.

Handel’s win also comes at a critical time for congressional Republicans, who have gotten bogged down trying to pass major legislation, including on health care.

"Democrats from coast to coast threw everything they had at this race, and Karen would not be defeated," House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement.

Turnout soared in the special election, with Republican outside groups spending millions of dollars to drive more GOP voters to the polls this time than in the April primary. Ossoff and Handel finished first and second in the all-party primary two months ago, setting up Tuesday’s runoff — though Ossoff came just a few thousand votes short of winning the district outright in April. Ossoff held an edge in most public polling during the runoff, but Handel closed the gap just before Election Day.

Handel struggled to compete with Ossoff’s money, but she presented herself as an experienced conservative in line with the district’s traditional Republican leanings. Top Republicans flocked to Georgia to aid her, including Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, who helped raise $1 million for Handel at separate events, according to her campaign.

Ryan, Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue (a former Georgia governor) and Price himself came to the district to rally GOP voters, too.

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Trump also weighed in several times on the race on Twitter, hours before Election Day: “Karen Handel’s opponent in #GA06 can’t even vote in the district he wants to represent…” adding, “…because he doesn’t even live there! He wants to raise taxes and kill healthcare. On Tuesday, #VoteKarenHandel.”

Trump is not widely liked in the 6th District, where the presidential vote swung further toward Democrats in 2016 than in all but one non-Utah House seat. But while Trump’s standing in the district loosened the GOP’s hold on the seat, it did not dislodge the party. Instead, GOP outside groups focused on Pelosi’s own abysmal approval ratings to gin up opposition to Ossoff, whom they said was aligned with the San Francisco Democrat.

Ossoff, for his part, tried to cast himself as a centrist, promising to be a “fresh, independent voice” for the district. But Republicans also accused him of being soft on national security and of relying on liberal, small-dollar donors from outside the district to fuel his campaign.

Republicans also hammered Ossoff on his home address, as he doesn’t currently live in the district, while he said he wants to support his fiancée’s medical studies at Emory University. In one debate, Handel asked Ossoff: “Who are you going to vote for in this election?”

Ossoff urges his Democratic supporters to keep working for their cause in a concession speech.

"We showed the world that in places where no one thought it was possible you could fight, we could fight," Ossoff said, adding: "This is not the outcome any of us were hoping for. But this is the beginning of something much bigger than us."

Handel also spoke about House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, who was shot last week during a practice for the Republican congressional baseball team, during her speech.

"What happened on that ballfield was a terrible tragedy and we all need to continue to lift up Steve and the others who were injured that day," Handel said. "And we need to also lift up this nation so that we can find a more civil way to deal with our disagreements."

Gabriel Debenedetti contributed to this report.

Jon Ossoff, right, embraces volunteer Tiffany Fannin as he leaves a campaign office after meeting with supporters in Marietta, Ga., on June 20. | AP Photo