The special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District, held Tuesday, made Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel the candidates set to compete in a runoff on June 20.
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The first big special election of the Trump era is headed to a runoff
Voters in Georgia have forced a runoff between Democratic and Republican candidates for a congressional seat Republicans have held for the past 40 years.
Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff greets volunteers and supporters at a campaign office as he runs for Georgia's 6th Congressional District on April 18, 2017 in Marietta, Georgia.
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"We know how to fight," Ossoff told supporters during a rally late Tuesday. "This is already a victory for the ages. We have defied the odds — we have shattered expectations."
Ossoff, a 30-year-old upstart candidate, earned major financial support and national attention in the first closely watched state election of President Donald Trump's tenure. He took a significant early lead in Tuesday's special election but soon fell to about 48% support with nearly all precincts reporting. Ossoff needed to break a 50% threshold to claim the seat outright.
Trump, hoping to tip the scale in favor of a Republican, relied on some his 2016-era rhetoric, accusing Ossoff of campaigning on "major outside money" and "fake media support." He called the runoff a "big win" for Republicans.
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"Glad to be of help," Trump tweeted.
Karen Handel, Georgia's former secretary of state and Ossoff's closest Republican challenger, earned about 20% of the vote Tuesday night.
While other Republican candidates in the district expressed loyalty to Trump during the race, Handel was among the few who kept their distance. She did not mention the president during a short speech Tuesday night, local media reported.
Ossoff was a documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide before he jumped into the race. He has raised more than $8 million from party donors keen to send a message to Trump and the Republican Party at large ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, when Democrats hope to reclaim seats in the House and the Senate.
Early vote tallies in the 6th Congressional District on Tuesday night immediately pushed Ossoff to the head of a crowded field. Eighteen candidates were on the ballot Tuesday — 11 Republicans, five Democrats, and two candidates running as independents.
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Shortly after polls closed, Ossoff launched ahead with more than 60% of the early vote, with DeKalb County backing him on more than 55% of its ballots. Ossoff claimed more than 40% of Cobb and Fulton counties.
A hiccup in Fulton County briefly set precincts back shortly before midnight. Some "technical difficulties" forced Fulton to manually check cards to single out the error, but that hiccup appeared to get remedied quickly.
Some observers have warned against extrapolating this particular election as a predictor for national midterm elections in 2018, though the results were looked to as a possible general indication of voter sentiment toward Trump and Republicans in Congress. Trump won the district by 1.5 percentage points last November. Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, for whom the seat is being filled, won by more than 20 points in 2016.
Trump lent his own voice to GOP candidates late in the race, recording a robocall in which he described Ossoff as a potential "disaster" for Congress and calling him a "super liberal." Ossoff responded to Trump in interviews, saying simply, "I don't have great personal admiration for the man."
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