(FORBES) Republican Ralph Norman and Democrat Archie Parnell face off in Tuesday’s special election for South Carolina’s 5th Congressional District.

Norman, a former state representative, and Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs banker, are battling for the seat vacated by Republican Mick Mulvaney, who was confirmed as director of the Office of Management and Budget in February. </s> Ralph Norman, a Republican, defeated Archie Parnell, a Democrat, in a South Carolina special election on Tuesday in a U.S. House race.

Mr. Norman was expected to have an advantage over Mr. Parnell for the seat, which was vacated by Mick Mulvaney, now director of the Office of Management and Budget. However, Mr. Parnell kept the race relatively close, losing by just a few percentage points.

The race did not receive the same national focus as special elections in Georgia and Montana.

The Fifth District was redrawn to heavily favor Republicans after the 2010 elections. Mr. Mulvaney won his three re-election campaigns easily.

Live results for Georgia’s sixth congressional district » </s> South Carolina Republican Ralph Norman has won a special election on Tuesday to fill a House seat vacated by Mick Mulvaney.

Mulvaney left the seat to work as President Trump's budget director.

Norman, a former state representative, beat out Democrat Archie Parnell for the position. Norman was expected to win the race. </s> The special election that has consumed the country’s attention—and cost more than any House election in history—is finally here. Two months ago, the first round of voting sent Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel to a runoff for the congressional seat in Georgia’s 6th District. Polls have shown a close race as Democrats have staked their hopes on Ossoff to flip a Republican-held district for the first time under President Donald Trump. An Ossoff win would “carry a symbolic punch” as a rebuke of the president and an omen of things to come in the 2018 midterm elections.

The polls have just closed, and thanks to our friends at Decision Desk HQ, you can watch the results come in live right here:

Polls have also closed in South Carolina’s 5th District, where a special congressional election will determine who will succeed Mick Mulvaney following his appointment as director of the Office of Management and Budget in February. Republican Ralph Norman, a former state representative, is facing off against Democrat Archie Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs banker whose ad campaign has alluded to the fictional Frank Underwood, who represented the district in House of Cards. Norman is expected to win the district, which has been a Republican stronghold since a 2010 redrawing of district boundaries. Charleston’s Post and Courier reports that turnout for the election has been low, but, as in the Georgia race, the margin between Norman and Parnell could give a preview of both parties’ performance in the 2018 midterms.

Here are the live results from the South Carolina race: </s> Voters head to the polls on Tuesday in special elections to fill House seats in Georgia and South Carolina, vacated by congressmen who joined the Trump administration.

The most watched of the two races is Georgia’s election to replace former Republican Representative Tom Price, who was tapped to serve as President Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary. Democrat Jon Ossoff is locked in a neck-and-neck race against Republican Karen Handel in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, which has been a Republican stronghold for over a decade. Although Trump managed to pull out a win over Hillary Clinton in the district, he fared far worse than Mitt Romney in 2012, creating an opening that Democrats hope to exploit.

South Carolina’s special election has flown under the radar by contrast, largely because it lacks the suspense of Georgia’s race. Republican Ralph Norman is the heavy favorite to defeat Democrat Archie Parnell in South Carolina’s fifth congressional district, and is expected to win an election to replace former Republican Representative Mick Mulvaney, now the director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Although the outcome of a single special election isn’t a reliable predictor on its own of what will happen in upcoming midterm elections, the contest in Georgia could nevertheless have a significant, and even immediate, national impact.

Democrats believe the tight race in Georgia may be their best opportunity to flip a House seat ahead of the 2018 mid-term elections, and send a message that backlash to Trump can help the party win elections in conservative parts of the country. </s> Republicans won close special elections Tuesday for two seats in the U.S. House of Representatives where the GOP narrowly passed the American Health Care Act just one month ago and ultimately will need to maintain support if the legislation will become law.

With 90% of the vote counted in Georgia’s 6th Congressional district, Republican Karen Handel was declared the winner over Democrat Jon Ossoff by six percentage points, which was enough for news outlets to call the race for her. Earlier Tuesday night in South Carolina, Republican Ralph Norman beat Democrat Archie Parnell by a narrower three-point margin.

The wins are good news for Republicans, which narrowly passed the American Health Care Act, also known as Trumpcare, by just four votes in the House last month. The AHCA remains controversial and sits before the U.S. Senate. It’s unclear what the Senate will ultimately do with the AHCA because Republican Senate leadership hasn’t made their healthcare bill available for public view, nor most of their own fellow Senators, according to media reports

Georgia’s 6th Congressional District was once held by former Republican House Speaker and presidential candidate Newt Gingrich and most recently Dr. Tom Price, picked by Trump to be U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary.

Like Price, the Republican running to replace him, former Georgia Secretary of State Karen Handel, supports the American Health Care Act, also known as Trumpcare. “The current GOP proposal working its way through the House of Representatives remains a work in progress, but it is on the right track,” Handel said on her website.

During the campaign for South Carolina’s 5th District seat that had been held by Mick Mulvaney before he was tapped by Trump to be White House budget director, Republican Norman said he supported the repeal and replacement of the ACA. Parnell, a former Goldman Sachs executive, supported the ACA and said he wanted to see fixes to the law.

Depending on what the Senate does with the AHCA, it will most likely have to be approved once again by the House of Representatives. The AHCA would cause 23 million Americans to lose coverage by 2026, the Congressional Budget Office said last month. </s> Bipartisan love may be on display in Washington, but farther down the coast, a vicious political battle is underway for Georgia’s 6th District.

Groups hoping to influence the election have spent nine times more money attacking the candidates than they have running positive ads since the jungle primary in April, a Roll Call review on Friday of Federal Election Commission filings found.

The parties’ congressional arms have led the scorched-earth battle, each dropping roughly $5 million in the district since the primary. Nearly all that money went to attacking the opposing candidate.

Huge contribution totals going directly to the candidates have also boosted the campaigns, though that fundraising has mostly been directed toward Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff. He reported raising $23.6 million through the end of May, while Republican Karen Handel brought in $4.3 million.

Not all that money, of course, came from within the suburban Atlanta district, or even from the state. Just about 13 percent of the donations to Ossoff that totaled more than $200 came from Georgia donors.

Handel, who’s received 45 percent of her money from within the state, has hit Ossoff on the issue — voters in Georgia, she said earlier this month, “are not interested in people from California, Massachusetts and New York buying this seat.” The Congressional Leadership Fund, which has spent at least $3.5 million since the primary to help Handel, has also made that a central line of attack.

Ossoff narrowly missed winning the once deep-red seat — vacated in January by Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price — outright during the April open primary.

Meanwhile, in South Carolina, another special election is set for Tuesday between Democrat Archie Parnell and Republican Ralph Norman.

The Palmetto State’s 5th District — previously represented by White House budget director Mick Mulvaney — isn’t seen as the same kind of fertile ground for Democrats to pick up a GOP-leaning seat. President Donald Trump carried the district by 19 points in 2016, according to calculations by Daily Kos Elections, and Mulvaney beat his opponent by a similar margin.

Norman has outperformed Parnell in fundraising by about 70 percent, though neither has brought in anything close to the amounts raised in Georgia. Also different than the Georgia race: Most of the money donated to Norman and Parnell has come from within their home state.

The national parties’ congressional campaign committees have gotten involved in South Carolina, though in a much more modest way than in Georgia. The DCCC announced earlier in June it would funnel $275,000 into Parnell’s bid, and the GOP committee has invested $100,000 in the race in a joint ad buy with Norman.

Outside spending from other organizations has also been lower. Only two conservative outside groups — the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund —have put up their own cash since the primary there last month, and both have stayed under $10,000.

Simone Pathé contributed to this report. Get breaking news alerts and more from Roll Call on your iPhone or your Android. </s> WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - Republican Karen Handel has won a closely contested special House election in Georgia, which was seen as an acid test for President Donald Trump's presidency.



Handel, who has been Georgia's Secretary of State, won 52.7 percent of the votes against her Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, who garnered 47.3.



The special election was called after Rep. Tom Price vacated the seat to become the Secretary of Health and Human Services in the Federal Cabinet. 



Price had won re-election by more than 23 percentage points last November.



However, even a narrow victory by Handel is seen as a face-saver for Trump, and as a sign of support for his agenda. 



In South Carolina fifth district, Republican Ralph Norman beat Democrat Archie Parnell. Norman won by a surprisingly close 3-point margin in a solidly conservative area.



These wins protected Republicans' 24-seat majority in the House of Representatives.



With the President's approval rate at a low level, and the Government mired in controversy surrounding the Trump Campaign's Russian connection, Democrats had hoped to strike a blow against Trump's presidency.



Georgia's sixth district is a traditionally safe Republican forte, but the GOP had to spent a record-setting $50 million to retain a seat that looked to be slipping from the party.



Democrats too have been pumping money into the race, making it the most expensive congressional contest in history.



The House seat became a focus of Democrats nationwide rallying against Trump, pitting a political newcomer Jon Ossoff against the businesswoman-turned politician. 



Trump himself led the attack against Ossoff, claiming the documentary filmmaker and former congressional staffer wants to raise taxes and kill health care.



'Congratulations to Karen Handel on her big win in Georgia 6th. Fantastic job, we are all very proud of you,' Trump said on Twitter Wednesday.



Handel gave a special thanks to Trump in addition to thanking House Speaker Ryan, the House leadership and 'so many of the members across this country'.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX </s> Georgia Republican Karen Handel won the most expensive congressional race in history on Tuesday, avoiding a Democratic upset in a race that was widely seen as a referendum on President Donald Trump.

By a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent, the former Georgia secretary of state defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff, a political newcomer who sought to wrest control of a suburban Atlanta district that has elected Republicans to Congress since the 1970s.

The election will not significantly change the balance of power in Washington, where Republicans control the White House and both chambers of Congress.

But it could give Republicans a boost in confidence as they struggle to advance health and tax legislation that has been bogged down by infighting and investigations into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia in last year’s presidential election.

Handel said at her victory rally that she knew it was going to “require all hands on deck” for Republicans to hold on to the district.

“Tonight I stand before you, extraordinarily humbled and honored at the tremendous privilege and high responsibility that you … have given me,” Handel told a boisterous crowd that chanted Trump’s name.

Ossoff and Handel both tried to focus on local issues and avoided mentioning Trump, whose approval rating sits at 37 percent, according to Reuters/Ipsos polling.

But that did not stop Trump from weighing in on Twitter, calling Ossoff weak on national security and urging voters to support Handel.

Spending on the race reached at least $57 million, nearly twice the previous record, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. The special election was held to fill the seat vacated by Tom Price after Trump appointed him as secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Democrats celebrated the fact that they had turned a conservative stronghold into a competitive district.

“We showed the world that in places where no one thought it was even possible we could fight (that) we could fight,” Ossoff told supporters.

But the defeat was sure to prompt soul-searching in a party that is shut out of power in Washington and has steadily lost influence at the state level in recent years. Despite spending more than $30 million, Ossoff lost the district by a wider margin than Democrat Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.

Democrats also lost a special election in neighboring South Carolina on Tuesday, where Republican Ralph Norman easily prevailed over Democrat Archie Parnell in a seat formerly held by Republican Mick Mulvaney, who is now serving as Trump’s budget director.

Democrats are 0 for 4 in congressional elections this year, having earlier lost races to fill vacant seats in Kansas and Montana.

Republicans, meanwhile, can now breathe a sigh of relief with the knowledge that they can still win in the kind of affluent, educated districts that often favor Democrats – even with a president who has divided voters in their own party.

“Do I agree 100 percent with what he does? God, no. But I believe he has the country’s best interests at heart,” said Jessica Podalsky, who voted for Handel on Tuesday morning.
Republican Ralph Norman narrowly defeats Democrat Archie Parnell to win a U.S. House district in north-central South Carolina.