ROSWELL, Ga. (AP) _ Republican Karen Hndel has won a nationally watched congressional election in Georgia and avoided a major upset after the most expensive House campaign in U.S. history.

Her victory over Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District comes after Republican special congressional election wins in Montana, Kansas and South Carolina.

Republicans are claiming momentum ahead of the 2018 midterms, but each race was much closer than expected for the four districts.

Those trends leave Democrats hopeful they can win a House majority next year. They need to flip 24 GOP seats.

The 55-year-old Handel is a former Georgia secretary of state who built her professional and political career after leaving an abusive home as a teenager. She succeeds Republican Tom Price, who resigned to join President Donald Trump’s administration.

Atlanta congressman and civil rights icon John Lewis is revving up the crowd at the election night party for Democrat Jon Ossoff.

The 77-year-old congressman on Tuesday recalled a letter a young Ossoff wrote to Lewis asking for a Capitol Hill internship. Now Ossoff is a 30-year-old Democrat running for Congress himself.

He’s trying to pull a major upset in the suburban Atlanta district north of Lewis’ 5th District. Ossoff is running against Republican Karen Handel, who is trying to hang on to a district her party has controlled since 1979.

Lewis is praising Ossoff supporters for making “a major down payment on change not just in the 6th District but … in our nation.”

Karen Handel is telling supporters that the first results in Georgia’s closely watched congressional race are “incredibly encouraging.”

The Republican candidate made a brief appearance shortly before 8 p.m. as her supporters gathered at a hotel ballroom in Atlanta and chanted “Karen! Karen! Karen!” at her entrance. Handel says there is a long way to g and urged her backers to stay and watch returns come in.

Handel faces Democrat Jon Ossoff in the race for Georgia’s 6th Congressional District and is trying to hold on to a district her party has controlled since 1979.

Most polls have closed in Georgia for a special congressional election that offers a potential preview of the 2018 midterm elections.

A few precincts remained open Tuesday evening after a rain-soaked day in metro Atlanta.

Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff are expected to have a tight finish in the area’s traditionally conservative northern suburbs.

Ossoff wants an upset that would rattle Washington ahead of next year’s elections. A Republican has represented Georgia’s 6th Congressional District since 1979.

Turnout could exceed 250,000 votes, an impressive total for a special election, and its already the most expensive House race in U.S. history.

An election official says voting has been moving smoothly at polling sites in Georgia’s closely-watched House election.

Richard Barron, director of Fulton County’s registration and elections, says the state’s most populous county is on pace to have around 36,000 people come through when polls close at 7 p.m. Tuesday. He says about 16,500 people had already voted by 12:30 p.m.

Barron says there have been a couple of voting issues, but it’s nothing that would derail having final results in by 11 p.m. He says one of the most common complaints has been from poll workers canceling people’s absentee-by-mail ballots at polls.

In the April 18 general election, state officials reported polling machines used to check in voters at one precinct in Johns Creek weren’t working properly, but the problem was resolved.

Election officials for a Georgia county in the 6th Congresional District say two polling places will stay open late after an equipment problem delayed the start of voting.

State officials said polling places at Livsey Elementary School and Holy Cross Catholic Church received the wrong equipment for checking in voters.

DeKalb County officials said the problem was resolved by 7:30 a.m. but they want voters to have a full 12 hours to cast ballots in the runoff between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff.

DeKalb County Superior Court Judge Gregory Adams signed an order Tuesday afternoon keeping polls open until 7:30 p.m. at both locations. Other polling places in the district, which includes portions of Cobb, DeKalb and Fulton counties, close at 7 p.m.

An election official in Georgia’s most-populous county says he’s aiming to have final results in by 11 p.m. Tuesday in Georgia’s closely-watched congressional election.

That would contrast with last April, when Fulton County could not report vote totals for several hours after polls closed in the special election in Georgia’s 6th congressional district. That contest led to Tuesday’s runoff between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff.

This time, county officials are optimistic they will have more timely results.

Richard Barron, director of Fulton County’s registration & elections, says that although 11 p.m. is his goal, “accuracy is paramount.”

The county scheduled a briefing Tuesday afternoon to update reporters on its role in the election.

Portions of Fulton, Cobb and DeKalb counties are included in the 6th Congressional District.

A spokeswoman for Georgia’s top election official says voting in the state’s closely-watched 6th District is going smoothly but some issues have been reported.

Two voting locations in DeKalb County had the wrong equipment used to check voters in. Workers had to use paper listsas a backup.

Secretary of State spokeswoman Candice Broce said some voters were told to use provisional ballots. She wasn’t sure how many people were given those directions. Broce says DeKalb officials are considering whether to ask a judge to extend voting hours at the Livsey Elementary School and Embry Hills polling places.

Broce says investigators from the Secretary of State’s office are reviewing the issue. An investigator also went to a church in Cobb County after a complaint that campaigns signs were too close to the location.

As voting got underway in Georgia’s closely-watched Congressional race, the state’s chief elections official posted a video on social media urging voters to head to the polls and “wear your peach voting sticker with pride.”

Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp said in the Facebook video Tuesday morning that Georgians’ right to vote for their public officials should never be taken for granted.

Either Republican Karen Handel will claim a seat that’s been in her party’s hands since 1979 or Democrat Jon Ossoff will manage an upset that will rattle Washington ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Their matchup in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District has become a proxy for the national political atmosphere and a test of GOP strength early in Donald Trump’s presidency.

As the most expensive House race in in U.S. history goes into voters’ hands, President Donald Trump has taken to Twitter to weigh in on the closely-watched election.

In one early Tuesday tweet, Trump criticizes Democrat Jon Ossoff, saying he’ll raise taxes, is weak on crime and “doesn’t even live in district.” Ossoff lives in Atlanta, south of the suburban district. He has said the address is close to Emory University, where his fiancee attends medical school.

In another tweet, Trump praises Republican Karen Handel as a hard worker who will fiht for lower taxes, great health care and strong security.

The matchup between Ossoff and Handel has become a proxy for the national political atmosphere and a test of GOP strength early in Trump’s presidency.

Trump barely won the district in November, giving Democrats an opening once Republican Tom Price resigned the seat to join the president’s Cabinet as health secretary.

The most expensive House race in U.S. history heads to voters Tuesday in suburban Atlanta.

Either Republican Karen Handel will claim a seat that’s been in her party’s hands since 1979 or Democrat Jon Ossoff will manage an upset that will rattle Washington ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

Their matchup in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District has become a proxy for the national political atmosphere and a test of GOP strength early in Donald Trump’s presidency.

Ossoff led an April primary but fell just short of an outright victory, sending an already costly race into a two-month runoff campaign.

Trump barely won the district in November, giving Democrats an opening once Republican Tom Price resigned the seat to join the president’s Cabinet as health secretary. </s> Jon Ossoff, candidate for congress in Georgia's sixth congressional district, meets with his supporters and volunteers at the Sandy Springs Canvass Launch for his final day on the campaign trail. Georgia voters steadily streamed into suburban Atlanta polling places Tuesday set to decide the most expensive House race in U.S. history and put weeks of television ads, phone calls and ringing doorbells behind them. Either Republican Karen Handel will claim a seat thats been in her partys hands since 1979 or Democrat Ossoff will manage an upset that will rattle Washington ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. (Chad Rhym/Atlanta Journal-Constitution via AP) </s> DUNWOODY, Ga. -- Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel are headed to a June 20 runoff in the contest for the longtime Republican-held seat in the suburbs north of Atlanta.

But because of technical difficulties in the elections office of Georgia's most populous county, it was not clear when final results in Georgia's 6th Congressional District would be available.

Ossoff had sought to parlay opposition to President Donald Trump into a victory that would rebuke the White House and embolden Democrats ahead of the 2018 midterm elections.

With all of the votes counted in Cobb and DeKalb counties and partial returns from Fulton County, Ossoff hovered near the majority threshold required to win an 18-candidate primary outright. Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, was in a distant second, but comfortably ahead of her Republican competitors.

A spokesman for Georgia Secretary of State Brian Kemp confirmed that Fulton County officials were having difficulty reading memory cards from voting machines. That left uncounted tens of thousands of votes, though Ossoff's support was lagging in Fulton County.

Ossoff addressed his supporters late Tuesday before the runoff was announced.

"No matter what the outcome is tonight, whether we take it all or whether we fight on, we have defied the odds ... shattered expectations," he said.

The winner succeeds Tom Price, who resigned to become Trump's health secretary.

With 185 of 210 precincts reporting, Ossoff had 48 percent of the vote and Handel had 20 percent; Republican Bob Gray was holding the next-highest vote total with 11 percent.

Trump took to Twitter urging Republicans to cast ballots late Tuesday. He even mocked Ossoff's choice of residence -- outside the district.

"Just learned that Jon Ossoff, who is running for Congress in Georgia, doesn't even live in the district. Republicans, get out and vote!" the president wrote.

The contest is testing both parties' strategies for the coming national election cycle. Democrats are expected to have a better shot at snagging the typically Republican seat than they did in last week's closer-than-expected GOP victory in a Kansas special House election.

Trump did not perform as well as other Republicans in November in the Georgia district, an affluent, well-educated area filled with the kind of voters Democrats are likely to need if they hope to reclaim a House majority next year. Republicans currently hold a 238-193 advantage in the chamber.

Ossoff would be a "disaster" in Congress, Trump declared earlier Tuesday on social media, a day after he blasted the "super liberal" Democrat as a champion of criminals, higher taxes and unchecked immigration.

Despite Trump's Twitter barrage, the White House insisted the race isn't about the president. "I wouldn't use the word referendum," said spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. "I think he hopes to have a Republican elected."

An investigative filmmaker, Ossoff raised more than $8.3 million, mostly from donors far from the northern suburbs of Atlanta. That sum dwarfs what any Republican candidate has spent on the contest.

Ossoff has energized liberals and younger voters, while also aiming for disaffected independents and moderate Republicans.

Cedrick Gulley, 25, a Georgia State University student from the Atlanta suburb of Sandy Springs, compared the 30-year-old Ossoff to former President Barack Obama and Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J. Gulley said Tuesday that they all "make me feel like my generation is being heard."

He added that Democrats were "a little lazy" in November, but now "there's an emergence of people fighting."

Ossoff has pledged to fight Trump when he "embarrasses" the country. But he's also said he would "work with anybody in Washington who respects your tax dollars."

That still wasn't enough for voters like Matt West, 45, a financial planner from Roswell.

"He lives outside the district, he's a Democrat, and I just don't believe that he'd stand up to [House Minority Leader] Nancy Pelosi if the district wanted him to," West said. West said he voted for Handel.

Republican groups ran a blitz of ads trying to tie Ossoff to Pelosi; a political action committee backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan has spent more than $2 million on those and other attacks.

As for residency, Ossoff concedes that he lives just south of the district, in Atlanta, so his girlfriend is close to her work at Emory University's medical complex.

National Republicans say any of the four competitive GOP candidates could defeat Ossoff in a second round. They predicted conservative voters would be energized in a Republican vs. Democrat scenario, making it harder for Ossoff.

"Republican voters are not going to sit by and let this district go to a Democrat," Handel said at one of her final campaign stops.

Information for this article was contributed by Catherine Lucey of The Associated Press. </s> SANDY SPRINGS — The high hopes Democrats had of striking a political blow to President Trump in the battle for Georgia’s open congressional seat were shattered Tuesday.

Republican Karen Handel emerged victorious in the runoff race for the U.S. House seat in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District — beating back the “Resistance” movement and defending a seat in the wealthy Atlanta suburbs that Republicans have held for nearly 40 years.

Mrs. Handel, a former secretary of state, was declared the winner by networks and the Associated Press more than three hours after the polls closed at 7 p.m., overcoming a well-financed challenge from Democrat Jon Ossoff in the most expensive U.S. House race in history.

Mrs. Handel praised her supporters and said she hopes to carry on the legacy of her predecessors in that district: Newt Gingrich, Johnny Isakson and Tom Price, who vacated the seat to become Mr. Trump’s health secretary.

“These men, these statesmen, have created very very big shoes to fill and I will do my level best to live up to the standard that they have set,” she said. “My promise is to work every single day, relentlessly to make our state and this country a better place.”

With 207 percent of the 208 precincts counted, Mrs. Handel defeated Mr. Ossoff, a former congressional aide and documentary filmmaker, by a 52.6 percent to 47.4 percent margin.

At his election night rally, Mr. Ossoff told his supporters that he had called to congratulate Mrs. Handel, and thanked them, saying this is the “beginning of something much bigger than us.”

“The more than 12,000 of you who as darkness has crept across this planet have provided a beacon of hope for the people here in Georgia, and for people around the world,” he said, going on to take a veiled shot at Mr. Trump.

“At a time when politics has been dominated by fear, hatred and scapegoating and division this community stood up … and you carried us on your shoulders and we showed the world that in places where no one thought it was possible to fight, we could fight,” he said.

Billed as a referendum on the opening months of the Trump presidency, more than 240,000 people had voted, signaling that Democrats and Republicans remain highly engaged in politics after the November presidential election.

Mr. Trump still cast his shadow on the race even after it was over.

In her victory speech, Mrs. Handel thanked a series of national politicians and offered “special thanks to the president of the United States of America.” At that, the crowd at her Atlanta headquarters cheered and broke into chants of “Trump! Trump! Trump!”

Mr. Trump himself went on Twitter and wrote: “Congratulations to Karen Handel on her big win in Georgia 6th. Fantastic job, we are all very proud of you!”

But the built-in advantages in this district were too much for the Ossoff camp to overcome. The defeat marked the fourth time that Democrats have been able to claim only a moral victory in a special election to fill a House seat vacated by Trump Cabinet appointees.

“Nancy Pelosi threw the kitchen sink at her, yet Karen still came out on top and ready to fight for Georgia in Congress,” said Steve Stivers, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee.

“For all the Democrats’ bluster and despite pouring over $30 million into this race, I couldn’t be more proud to help keep this seat in Republican hands,” he said.

Mr. Ossoff raised more than $23 million for the race, while Mrs. Handel raised $4.5 million. They both received help from the national parties and outside groups, including pro-Handel political action committees that spent millions reminding voters that Mr. Ossoff lived outside the district and warning that he would be as a tool for Mrs. Pelosi, the San Francisco Democrat who leads the party in the House. </s> Republican Karen Handel staved off a furious challenge from Democrat Jon Ossoff on Tuesday in a race to represent a suburban Atlanta seat in Congress, as the GOP and President Donald Trump avoided an embarrassing defeat in the most expensive U.S. House contest in history.

A former Georgia secretary of state, Handel emphasized her experience and roots in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District to defeat Ossoff and keep a seat that’s long been held by Republicans in GOP hands. She becomes Georgia’s first female Republican member of the U.S. House.

Her victory will be cast as a win for Trump, who campaigned for Handel and hurled a string of antagonizing tweets at Ossoff. And it could buoy jittery GOP incumbents who worry that allying with Trump in competitive districts could doom them.

She overcame stiff opposition from Ossoff, a 30-year-old investigative filmmaker who fast became a rising Democratic star. With a carefully calibrated message, Ossoff shattered fundraising records as he appealed to liberals infuriated by Trump and GOP voters frustrated at Washington gridlock.

Georgia District 6 Runoff: Republican candidate for the 6th district Karen Handel (Video by Armani Martin)

His huge fundraising hauls – he raised at least $23 million – kept his message on metro Atlanta’s airwaves and allowed him to target irregular voters and others who rarely cast ballots for Democrats. And a legion of more than 12,000 Ossoff volunteers inundated the district with appeals to vote. But in the end, the money and Democratic energy wasn’t enough to overcome the district’s Republican underpinning.

Once a fervent anti-establishment candidate, Handel ran in this contest as a traditional conservative voice who backed Trump and his top priorities while saying she won’t be an “extension” of the White House.

She also relentlessly attacked Ossoff as an inexperienced stooge of national Democrats funded by out-of-state interlopers. At every turn, she sought to remind voters that Ossoff lived outside the district and that his values were “3,000 miles away.”

Handel won the conservative-leaning district, which stretches from the outskirts of Marietta to north DeKalb County, by running up big margins in GOP strongholds in places such as east Cobb County and Milton where Republicans have long thrived.

She also was able to overcome concerns with Trump across the territory. The president only narrowly carried the district in November, and polls showed him with weak approval ratings. But after keeping him at arm’s length early in the race, she aggressively embraced him after she landed a spot in the runoff in April.

The race - which cost more than $50 million – was over little more than a short-term lease to fill the remainder of former U.S. Rep. Tom Price’s term. She’s likely to face another tough Democratic challenger in November 2018, although Ossoff has said he hasn’t yet decided whether he’ll run again. </s> ATLANTA (AP) — A federal judge has ordered Georgia officials to reopen voter registration in a suburban Atlanta congressional district ahead of a runoff in a heated special election.

Georgia set the registration deadline for March 20, which was 30 days before special election in April. Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel, the top two vote-getters, advanced to a June 20 runoff in the typically conservative but now competitive district.

U.S. District Judge Timothy Batten ruled Thursday in favor of advocacy groups who argued that Georgia violated federal law by preventing more new voter registrations before the runoff. He ordered the state to extend the deadline to May 21.

State election officials argued a runoff is a continuation of an initial election under Georgia law and warned last-minute changes would be difficult. </s> ATLANTA (Reuters) - The costliest U.S. congressional race in history will be decided on Tuesday in suburban Atlanta, where America’s divisive political climate has been on display in an election seen by some analysts as a political test for President Donald Trump.

Days after a lone gunman opened fire on U.S. lawmakers at a baseball team practice in Virginia, a conservative group was running a TV ad in Atlanta that, with no evidence, appears to link the Democratic candidate, Jon Ossoff, to the shooting spree.

Ossoff called the ad “shameful” in a statement. The Atlanta Journal-Constitution newspaper reported that Ossoff’s Republican opponent, Karen Handel, also condemned the ad.

It was an ugly, last-minute twist in the Ossoff-Handel contest for the U.S. House of Representatives seat vacated by Tom Price, who resigned after becoming Trump’s secretary of the Health and Human Services Department.

Total spending in the Georgia race for all candidates has topped $56 million, including tens of millions by outside groups, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, a campaign finance watchdog in Washington, D.C., easily topping the previous record of $29.5 million set in a 2012 Florida race.

Out of the total, $51.9 million has been spent on Handel and Ossoff, the Center for Responsive Politics said.

Envelopes containing a white powder turned up last week in the home mailboxes of Handel and a few neighbors, prompting a probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The Washington Post reported that the powder was only baking soda and both candidates now are traveling with bodyguards.

The district spans affluent and increasingly diverse suburbs north of Atlanta. It has elected Republicans for decades, but Trump carried it by only 1 percentage point in 2016.

Ossoff, 30, initially drew national attention with the slogan “Make Trump Furious,” inspiring volunteers from as far away as Oregon to knock on doors and make phone calls for him.

Slideshow (8 Images)

Handel, a 55-year-old former Georgia secretary of state, has painted Ossoff as an inexperienced tool of national liberal interests who does not live in the district he hopes to represent. Like Ossoff, Handel rarely mentions Trump.

Whatever the outcome, the race will not significantly alter the balance of power in Washington, where Republicans control the House by a wide margin. But victory could provide a blueprint for Democrats on how to win outside of their urban, coastal strongholds.

Democrats fell short in special House elections earlier this year in Kansas and Montana, in districts that Trump won by double-digits. Also on Tuesday is a race in South Carolina, which Republicans are expected to win handily, for a replacement for Republican Mick Mulvaney, now Trump’s budget director. </s> Atlanta (CNN) In Karen Handel, Republicans found an experienced political hand to take on Democratic online fundraising star Jon Ossoff in the runoff for a hotly contested House seat in Georgia.

But with Handel's political experience comes baggage.

The former Georgia secretary of state's stances on social issues are certain to be a focus in the runoff -- particularly her effort to stop the Susan G. Komen Foundation, the breast cancer charity where she was senior vice president for policy, from funding screenings through Planned Parenthood because she opposes abortion rights. She later wrote a book, "Planned Bullyhood," about the episode.

The contest has largely been seen as a test of President Donald Trump's popularity -- particularly because he barely won the district, even though his pick for health and human services secretary, former Rep. Tom Price, was re-elected in 2016 by more than 20 points, and Mitt Romney had carried the district by 23 points in 2012.

Handel raised eyebrows when she didn't mention Trump at all in her speech Tuesday night. But she tweeted Wednesday morning that the President had called her. And, asked on CNN's "New Day" whether Trump would campaign for her, she said: "I would hope so."

"He just called to say, 'Congratulations' and encourage me and let me know that as we go into June 20, that it's all-hands-on-deck for Republicans and we take it very seriously," she said.

Handel, 55, grew up in the Washington suburbs in Maryland and moved to Atlanta in the 1990s for her husband's work. She later became a Fulton County commissioner and then Georgia's secretary of state.

Handel has twice run unsuccessfully for higher office, losing in GOP primaries both times. In 2010, she was defeated in a governor's race by Nathan Deal. And in 2014, she unsuccessfully sought a US Senate seat won by David Perdue.

Since her 2010 campaign, Handel has been -- as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution put it -- on the outside of local Republican politics looking in.

"Now we have the question: Will the Republican power crowd that isn't here right now, and they're not going to be here tonight -- there's going to be some talking done in the backroom. Do they get behind her or do they not?"

Handel was targeted by other Republicans during the 6th District jungle primary -- including Dan Moody, whose campaign aired a memorable ad portraying Handel, who often wears a pearl necklace, as an elephant wearing an enormous set of pearls.

She was also attacked by the Club for Growth over what it called out-of-control spending -- particularly on her office budget -- as a Fulton County commissioner.

Democrats are already readying their attacks against Handel, signaling they are prepared to pick up on the spending-related attacks.

"Handel's career as a big-spending career politician will haunt her candidacy," Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee press secretary Evan Lukaske said in a memo.

Handel's efforts as secretary of state to purge Georgia's voter rolls by requiring voters to prove their citizenship led to fights with the Justice Department's Civil Rights Division.

In an interview last month, Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez -- who led the Civil Rights Division during President Barack Obama's first term -- said voters would hear "a lot" about Handel's efforts to require voters to prove their citizenship if she advanced to the runoff.

"Secretaries of state matter, and when they're good, then people can actually vote who are eligible to vote. And when they're following the ALEC playbook of the far right, they make it harder for people to vote," Perez said, referring to the conservative American Legislative Exchange Council. </s> It may or may not matter in the results of the June 20 runoff for Congress in the sixth district of Georgia. But it could not hurt the field-heavy Jon Ossoff campaign that a federal judge has struck down the state’s early deadline on voter registration for the runoff, reopening it until May 21, as the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported:

It probably tells you everything you need to know about the likely impact that Ossoff praised the judge’s decision while opponent Karen Handel attacked it. Meanwhile, Georgia’s Republican secretary of State, Brian Kemp (a candidate for governor next year) called the underlying suit “a political effort by liberal groups to attack him as a Republican officeholder.”

As voting-rights expert Ari Berman noted, registration is on the rise in Georgia:

There’s some rough justice, moreover, in Handel being negatively affected by the dismantling of a barrier to full voter participation:

This is a do-or-die election for Karen Handel, who lost statewide primary bids in 2010 and 2014. Her political career may yet live by the voter-suppression sword and die by the voter-registration sword.
Campaigning ends and voting begins in the suburbs of Atlanta in the U.S. state of Georgia between Republican Karen Handel and Democratic Jon Ossoff, where Republican Handel wins the election by a narrow margin.