Republicans celebrate Georgia House victory
DUNWOODY, Ga. — Republicans can enjoy some breathing room after winning a Georgia special congressional race that morphed from an afterthought in the usually conservative Atlanta suburbs into an expensive national proxy for Washington wars ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.
Democrats are left with the bitter hope of another tighter-than-usual margin, still searching for a contest where anti-Trump energy and flush campaign coffers actually add up to victory.
The latest GOP winner is Karen Handel, who won about 52 percent of the vote in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District to quell the upstart phenomenon of Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old Democrat who raised more than $23 million and became a symbol of opposition to President Donald Trump.
Handel, who left an abusive home as a teen, will be the first Republican woman to represent Georgia in Congress.
The former Georgia secretary of state was quick to embrace her party’s leader after mostly avoiding him — at least publicly — during a protracted campaign.
“A special thanks to the president of the United States of America,” Handel said late Tuesday night as her supporters chanted, “Trump! Trump! Trump!”
It was Handel’s most explicit praise of a president whose tenuous standing put this previously safe Republican district in peril in the first place. Trump barely won the affluent, well-educated district in November, trailing the usual GOP benchmark here by double-digits.
In a Tuesday night tweet, Trump congratulated Handel, saying “we are all very proud of you!”
Handel’s tough race, combined with closer-than-usual GOP House victories in Kansas, Montana and South Carolina, suggests Trump will dominate the coming election cycle, forcing Republicans to make peace with him, for better or worse.
Joe Webb, a Handel supporter from Marietta, wore a red “Make America Great Again” hat throughout Handel’s victory party.
“She personally told me she was rock solid” with the president, said Webb, 70. He added that 6th District Republicans united against a Democratic candidate many saw as a tool of his national party leaders.
Republicans immediately crowed over winning a seat Democrats spent at least $30 million trying to flip. “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.
Democrats must defend their current districts and win 24 GOP-held seats to regain a House majority next November. Party leaders profess encouragement from the trends, but the latest losses mean they will have to rally donors and volunteers after a tough stretch of special elections.
Ossoff told his supporters: “The fight goes on.”
Handel is the latest in a line of Republicans who have represented the Georgia 6th since 1979, beginning with Newt Gingrich, who would become House speaker. Most recently, Tom Price resigned in February to join Trump’s administration. Handel emphasized that pedigree often during her campaign and again during her victory speech.
She also noted throughout the campaign that she’s lived in the district for 25 years, unlike Ossoff, who grew up in the district but lives in Atlanta, a few miles south of the 6th District’s southern border.
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