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> Next month, Republican Karen Handel will square off against Democrat Jon Ossoff in a runoff to replace former Georgia congressman Tom Price, who resigned when he was appointed Donald Trump’s health and human services secretary. Handel and Ossoff were the top two finishers in an all-party primary, in which Ossoff received 48 percent, outperforming Hillary Clinton’s 46 percent in the district.

One thing is for sure: the Georgia special election is set to be the most expensive House race in history. Both Republicans and Democrats are slated to pour tens of millions into the campaign over the next month.

Candidates and outside groups have aired or reserved more than $29.7 million worth of TV ads in the race to replace Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price in Congress, which will break a five-year-old record for House spending — highlighting the outsize importance a sliver of the Atlanta suburbs has taken on in national politics. It is plainly more money than one House race out of 435 needs. Cash is flowing in at such saturation levels that Democrat Jon Ossoff’s campaign had the money for everything from Korean radio ads to free Lyft rides for voters on primary day. The Atlanta NBC station has even bumped reruns of “The Andy Griffith Show” from their regular slot in order to extend its local newscasts and make more room for political ads.

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Ossoff’s campaign is being propelled by small-dollar donations, mostly from outside of the district. He’s tapped into the progressive anger over President Donald Trump’s election and effectively nationalized the race.

Meanwhile, President Trump had a fundraiser for Handel that raised hundreds of thousands for her campaign. House Speaker Paul Ryan has also stepped up for Handel by raising hundreds of thousands more. In addition, House Republicans’ Congressional Leadership Fund plans on dumping $8.5 million into the race, which has set a new record for outside spending.

Why is this race so important? For starters, it already is a defeat for Republicans. The fact that Ossoff got 48 percent of the vote in what was a deeply red district means that Republicans are vulnerable nationwide. Progressives are as energized now as the tea party was in 2010.

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This district is also important because it’s a must-win for Democrats if they plan on taking back the House of Representatives in 2018. Georgia’s Sixth is a suburban enclave of Atlanta that is trending younger and has had an influx of minority voters. If Democrats cannot win here, they will have a tough time flipping other Republican seats.

The battle in Georgia’s special election will go down to the wire, but one thing is for sure: neither party is leaving anything on the table. </s> TUCKER, Ga. | The price tag of the Georgia special congressional election has climbed north of $50 million, making it the most expensive House race ever.

The candidates, the national party committees and outside interest groups have all poured money into the race, leaving even one of the pros involved in the effort stunned.

“We can’t spend that sum of money on every race and we won’t spend that sum of money on every race,” National Republican Congressional Committee Chairman Steve Stivers said on MSNBC. “But this race has taken on sort of an outsized impact because it is the only race that the Democrats seem to be focusing on.”

Campaign finance filings show that as of May 31, Democrat Jon Ossoff had raised more than $23 million since entering the race to replace Rep. Tom Price, who vacated the seat to become secretary of Health and Human Services. Republican Karen Handel had pulled in over $4.5 million.

Combined with outside efforts, though, the price tag is much higher.

“The race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel is the most expensive congressional race in history, easily overtaking Florida 18’s 2012 election, which cost $29.5 million,” Sara Swann, of the Center for Responsive Politics, said in an analysis of the race released Monday.

Democrats say the race is a referendum on President Trump. The GOP says it’s a chance for voters to express displeasure with Democrats’ obstruction.

Mrs. Handel suggested Monday that the race would not as close as it is if it were not for Mr. Ossoff’s fundraising edge.

“The Democrats put a lot of money into this,” she told reporters Monday. “I mean not for nothing. A squirrel is going to get a pretty decent percentage of the vote if he has $30 million behind him.”

Mr. Ossoff, meanwhile, downplayed his fundraising advantage, and played up the fact that his campaign has 12,000 volunteers, saying working with that sort of grass-roots energy has been “uplifting and exciting.”

“When you have tens of millions of dollars of attack ads pouring in here from my unaccountable Washington super PACs it is necessary to raise the resources to fight back, and I am proud of the fact that the campaign has done it through small dollar grass-roots fundraising with an average contribution of $50,” he said.

The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with House GOP leaders, has put $7 million into the race and the NRCC has invested $6.7 million.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has funnelled more than $6 million into the race and the Planned Parenthood Action fund has spent over $800,000.

The television and radio airwaves here have been blanketed with campaign ads, and voters have been inundated with phone calls, mailers and canvassers who have been showing up on their doorsteps urging them to vote.

The Ossoff campaign ran ads Monday in which he vowed to prioritize high-tech and biotech research to create more high-paying jobs and to make sure “our military and intelligence community have every tool they need to fight terrorism.” Another ad highlighted Mrs. Handel’s opposition to funding Planned Parenthood.

The Handel campaign ran ads pushing back against the idea that she is anti-woman, and contrasting her record against that of Mr. Ossoff and highlighting the fact that he lives just outside the congressional district.

“I have a proven record in the private sector and in public service — experience want to put to work for you,” Mrs. Handel says in a commercial. “My opponent doesn’t live here, doesn’t share our values. He has raised millions outside of Georgia from Nancy Pelosi and outsiders that just don’t share our priorities.” </s> The most expensive House race in history ended in a win for Republicans as Karen Handel narrowly defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in the special election for Georgia’s traditionally red 6th district.

Ossoff and Handel collectively raised a whopping $56.7 million, according to the Center for Responsible Politics, for a race that was widely seen as a test of Donald Trump’s presidency.

Though Georgia’s 6th district, which includes the suburbs of Atlanta, is a traditionally conservative area, Ossoff’s loss is still crushing for Democrats, who have so far been unable to translate anti-Trump sentiment into tangible political gains, including in two other close special elections in deep-red Kansas and Montana districts. But Ossoff’s loss is made worse by the money involved — $24 million from the party and another $8 million from outside groups.

The race was still close enough that Republican officials spent the last few weeks white-knuckled. Not only did Oklahoma’s Rep. Tom Cole openly admit that the race was “referendum on Trump,” administration officials were reportedly unnerved by the amount of time and money they had to throw at a district held by the right for almost four decades. After Ossoff nearly took the district outright in its April primary, outside super PACs quickly stepped in to back up Handel. As of Monday, outside groups had spent a whopping $18 million backing her and attacking Ossoff.

Ossoff’s popularity in the district which Trump carried by only two points was encouraging to Democratic donors, who saw an opportunity to take back a seat before the midterm elections. In fact, the majority of Ossoff’s money came from small donors — 65 percent from donations of $200 or less, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.

Even Tom Price, who represented the district until Trump tapped him to head the Department of Health and Human Services, said he was shocked by the amount of outside influence involved in the race. “The out-of-state money is crazy,” Price remarked to Handel supporters during a rally.

But despite the influx of donations, Handel — whose traditionally conservative campaign was endorsed by both President Trump and Vice President Mike Pence — ultimately did better than some on the right had feared.

Still, Ben Ray Luján, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, which spent about $5 million on the race, pointed out that Ossoff “vastly outperform[ed]” past Democrats who tried to take the district.

“There are more than 70 districts more favorable to Democrats than this deep-red district, and Ossoff’s close margin demonstrates the potential for us to compete deep into the battlefield,” Luján said in a statement. “The strong headwinds facing Republicans, incredible grass-roots enthusiasm behind Democrats, and a damaged and exposed House Republican Caucus all clarify that we have the momentum heading into 2018.”

Some other takeaways from the election:
• None By the time the race was called for Handel Tuesday night, with about 99 percent of the districts reporting, she had won by about 5 percentage points, meaning that Ossoff lost significant ground after his near-win in the primary. (He won about 48 percent of that April vote, just short of the 50 percent he needed to take the district and avoid Tuesday’s general election.)
• None The 2012 race for Florida’s 18th district used to be the most expensive House race. Its total: $29.5 million.
• None The two candidates in Georgia’s special election already had almost that much money just in their war chests weeks before the election ended. By May 31, Ossoff raised about $23.6 million, while Handel had raised about $4.5 million. The two each raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more by Tuesday.
• None But Handel had the upper hand when it came out outside funding, with outside super PACs spending $18 million on her campaign. Her two biggest outside funders where the Congressional Leadership Fund, a House GOP-linked super PAC, and the National Republican Congressional Committee. Each weighed in with over $6 million.
• Ossoff, who relied less on outside groups and more on smaller donors, still enjoyed roughly $8 million from outside groups. </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. </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> SANDY SPRINGS, Georgia — When he ran for president in 1976, Jimmy Carter raised about $33 million and made it to all the way to the White House. In the special congressional election Tuesday near Carter’s Atlanta home, the candidates and outside groups have already spent $40 million and counting.

The race, which pits Democrat Jon Ossoff against Republican Karen Handel, is easily the most expensive House race in American history, captivating both officials in Washington and grassroots activists across the country in the first pitched electoral battle of the Donald Trump presidency.

“Is $40 million a lot for a congressional election? Yes. Is $40 million a lot for a national election? No,” said Randy Evans, a Republican National Committeeman from Georgia.

The 6th congressional district has been held by Newt Gingrich, Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), and Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, who left the seat open when he joined Trump’s Cabinet. So when the contest heated up, people paid attention — partly because it is seen as a referendum on Trump and possibly an early indicator of how the midterm elections could go next year.

"Democrats saw an opportunity, so they went all in," Evans said. "Republicans have responded by saying, ‘That’s our seat, it’s a historic seat, we’re going to go all in.’ And when we you have both teams go all in, it becomes one of these unique historic moments."

Everyone agrees “the money is crazy,” as Price said at a rally for Handel on Saturday.

“It’s taken on a bit of a life of its own,” Ossoff said with a chuckle in an interview with NBC News Sunday.

It was not inevitable. There are other special congressional elections this year, including in places arguably as competitive as these North Atlanta suburbs. And leaders in both parties were, initially at least, not eager to burn through so many millions of dollars so quickly.

But Ossoff became a vessel for the anti-Trump “resistance,” forcing the GOP to counter. With the race close for months, both parties have felt the need to keep upping the ante, leading to a campaign fundraising arms race of historic proportions.

The previous most-expensive House contest was the 2012 battle between Allen West and Patrick Murphy in Florida in which about $30 million was spent.

Ossoff was the fourth Democrat to enter the contest. But when he declared in early January, he had $250,000 in commitments from donors and the support of both Atlanta-area Democratic congressmen, including civil rights icon Rep. John Lewis.

Lewis called on Democrats to unite behind Ossoff and they did, despite the fact that the candidate had never held public office and was only 30 years old.

"When John Lewis talks, you listen,” said Adam Bozzi of the liberal group End Citizens United, which has helped raise $1.5 million in small online contributions for Ossoff’s campaign.

It helped that candidates from all parties were thrown in together in the first round of the election in April, so groups that typically stay out of party primaries felt comfortable consolidating around one candidate.

One of the first groups to “discover” Ossoff was the liberal blog Daily Kos, which was already eyeing the district after they noticed it had taken a hard turn against Trump in November. Voters in Georgia’s 6th backed Mitt Romney by over 20 percentage points in 2012, but barely favored Trump over Hillary Clinton last year.

The blog’s analysts worried that Democrats would split their vote, so days after Trump’s inauguration and the Women’s March, just as liberals were looking for cause, the site endorsed Ossoff. They were not prepared for what happened next.

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Their endorsement ricocheted across the country, racking up 135,000 shares on Facebook and sending up flares as far away as Hollywood and San Francisco, where Ossoff, a former documentary filmmaker who talks about making Atlanta the Sillicon Valley of the south, was an instant hit. Within a week, $400,000 poured in through Daily Kos, shattering a previous fundraising record held by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).

“The powerful response from the Daily Kos community that immediately followed utterly blew us away,” said the site's political editor, Carolyn Fiddler.

Fundraising begat more fundraising, and Ossoff collected one million contributions at the fastest clip of any candidate in history — faster even than Bernie Sanders’ and Barack Obama’s presidential campaigns.

At the same time, Democratic leaders in Washington were under pressure to invest more in this spring’s special congressional elections. And thanks to a fluke of scheduling, hundreds of party officials got a close-up look at Ossoff when they came to Atlanta in February for the Democratic National Committee chairmanship race.

Ossoff proved to be a disciplined campaigner who had attracted top-flight strategists, so the official campaign arm of House Democrats felt comfortable pouring more money in than they had in other elections.

Meanwhile, Republicans were divided between 11 candidates in the first round of voting, when they were already filling the airwaves with ads attacking Ossoff and each other.

Once Handel emerged as the GOP nominee, outside groups cranked up the firepower to help her keep pace with Ossoff’s spending. Atlanta is one of the nation’s most expensive places to buy advertising. There’s been so much demand in this race that local TV stations have added broadcasts so they can sell more ad time.

While one seat will do little to change to the makeup up of the House, the race has more than symbolic value.

Across the country, potential candidates and incumbent lawmakers are watching the race closely as they decide whether to run or sit out what could be a tough election year.

"It’s a smart early investment to try to steal a seat, but also to send asignal that this is going to be a good year for Democrats,” said Dave Hamrick, the former political director of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the lead up to the party's 2006 wave. “The conditions are right to potentially win seats in an expanded set of districts, but you can only do that if you have good candidates on the field."

But Trump is clearly the more immediate issue on the line and on voters' minds Tuesday.

"This is an opportunity for Georgia to send a message to the rest of the county that we want some fresh leadership, that we're not satisfied with the direction Washington is going," Ossoff said. </s> Republican Karen Handel was projected to win Tuesday’s closely watched U.S. House special election in Georgia, defeating Democrat Jon Ossoff in the most expensive congressional race ever.

The Associated Press called the election for Handel with 81 percent of the precincts reporting and the Republican holding a 11,000-vote lead over Ossoff.

Handel, 55, becomes the latest in a line of Republicans who have represented the district since 1979, beginning with Newt Gingrich, who would become House speaker. Most recently, Tom Price resigned the post in February to join Trump’s administration as health and human services secretary. The president himself struggled here, though, edging Democrat Hillary Clinton but falling short of a majority among an affluent, well-educated electorate that typically has given Republican nominees better than 60 percent of the vote.

In April, Handel trailed Ossoff in the first round of voting but led all Republican candidates to qualify for a runoff. Ossoff tallied 48 percent, just shy of an outright victory.

Handel celebrated the early numbers with her supporters at an area hotel, saying she fared well in early and absentee voting but that it was too early to make a prediction.

“It’s still very, very early,” she said. “Everything we’re seeing is incredibly encouraging. … Let’s everybody hang tight, watch returns for a little bit longer, we’ll see what the trends do.”

The race has smashed fundraising records for a House contest, as Democrats try to capitalize on President Trump’s ratings to win the long-held Republican seat.

The campaigns for Handel and Ossoff, along with outside groups, spent a record $50 million.

The 30-year-old Ossoff, who lives just outside the district, failed to win the seat in April. But he was a top-two finisher in an 18-candidate field along with Handel, which landed them in Tuesday’s runoff.

The latest RealClearPolitics.com averaging of polls had Handel leading by less than 1 percentage point, which meant the race was essentially tied.

As polls closed, Georgia election officiasl said voting went smoothly throughout the day, amid some rain across the state.

The sixth congressional district seat, in suburban Atlanta, has been occupied by Republicans since 1979.

GOP Rep. Tom Price gave up the seat in February to become Health and Human Services Secretary.

The 2017 races were supposed to be a prelude to the Democrats’ grand plan to win control of the House next year — based largely on the expectation that voters will be dissatisfied with Trump and fellow Republicans who control Congress.

However, Democrats have failed in their first two attempts this year to take a Republican-held House seat.

In Kansas, Republicans held onto the seat of Mike Pompeo, now the CIA director, and they kept the Montana seat of Ryan Zinke, who became Trump’s Secretary of Interior.

So Democrats essentially pinned their last hopes on Ossoff, a first-time candidate, documentary filmmaker and former congressional aide.

The other special election race Tuesday was in South Carolina. Millionaire developer Ralph Norman, the Republican, defeated former Goldman Sachs tax adviser Archie Parnell, the Democrat, according to the Associated Press.

The race was for the seat left open by Republican Mick Mulvaney, now the White House budget director.

Ossoff has tried to thread the needle in the conservative-leaning Georgia district, appealing to Republican voters by vowing to cut taxes for small busineeses, while championing equal rights for women and minorities, which earned him the support of civil right icon and Georgia Democratic Rep. John Lewis.

However, Trump has repeatedly warned voters that Ossoff, if elected, would increase taxes and be soft on national security.

“Ossoff, who wants to raise your taxes to the highest level and is weak on crime and security, doesn’t even live in district,” Trump tweeted hours before polling stations opened.

While Republicans have held the seat since former House Speaker Newt Gingrich took it from Democrats nearly four decades ago, the district does not appear as conservative as in years past.

Trump won the district over Democrat Hillary Clinton last year by just 1.5 percent, compared to 2008 when Republican presidential nominee Arizona Sen. John McCain won by 18.9 percent.

While the race has attracted national attention and record money, Georgia voters have also taken a big interest in the outcome.

More than 40,000 people vote early, including 36,000 who didn’t vote in the April contest.

The parties are also attacking each other for the amount of out-of-state money they collected.

An Atlanta Journal-Constitution analysis showed just 3.5 percent of Ossoff’s donations between the end of March and May came from Georgia.

Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, continued Tuesday to tout her experience as a state and local elected official and argue that outside forces are trying to buy the seat.

Voters “are not interested in Hollywood and California coming in and buying this seat,” she said on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”

Still, Handel also benefited from outside spending, though most didn’t go directly to her campaign.

Groups like the Congressional Leadership Fund, a political action committee backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan, have spent millions on her behalf.

On Monday night, Ossoff told voters: “Politics does not have to be about fear and hate and deception and division,” avoiding mentioning Trump directly, as is his custom, but blistering “those cynics in Washington, D.C.”

The Associated Press contributed to this report. </s> (CNN) The special election for Georgia's sixth district is on its way to being the single most expensive House race in American history, according to calculations made by Politico .

If all current TV ad reservations are completed, the pricetag for the race between Republican Karen Handel and Democrat Jon Ossoff will be $29.7 million -- eclipsing the $24.4 million spent on TV advertising in the 2012 Florida 18th district race between Rep. Allen West (R) and Patrick Murphy (D), according to stats provided by the Center for Responsive Politics . (In 2016, the most expensive House race was for Speaker Paul Ryan's 1st district, with a cost of $21.3 million .)

That is a massive amount of money to be one of 435 House members. And, if Ossoff wins, to be a member of the minority party no less.

Why the incredibly high pricetag? A confluence of factors:

t: Georgia's sixth district is covered by the Atlanta media market. While not as expensive as the New York City or Washington, D.C. media markets, Atlanta is still an expensive place to buy television ads. ( Atlanta is the 10th biggest media market in the country .) That means that if a candidate or campaign committee or super PAC wants to make a real impression with voters in the district, they are talking about a multi-million dollar investment.

Ossoff's massive fundraising: In the first three months of 2017, Ossoff, a political unknown prior to this year, raked in $8.3 million -- an unheard of sum in a House race. That huge haul was due in large part to the fact that Ossoff became a sort of cause célèbre for liberal donors trying to send a message to President Donald Trump. : In the first three months of 2017, Ossoff, a political unknown prior to this year, raked in $8.3 million -- an unheard of sum in a House race. That huge haul was due in large part to the fact that Ossoff became a sort of cause célèbre for liberal donors trying to send a message to President Donald Trump. Ninety five percent of donors to Ossoff through March 29 came from outside of the state of Georgia

The polls: This is a very close race. Both : This is a very close race. Both public and private polling suggests that it is, as of today, a true tossup. Which means that moving a point or two either way could make a huge difference. The prospect of being the deciding voice in a race with this much national import attracts all sorts of outside spending on both sides of the aisle.

* The calendar: The free-for-all primary -- in which Ossoff and Handel finished one-two -- was on April 18. The one-on-one runoff isn't until June 20. That two-month gap between votes is unusual (runoffs tend to be held closer to the first vote) and allows candidates and national parties to raise and spend vast sums that they wouldn't be able to do in a shorter time frame. It's also worth noting that there simply aren't a whole lot of races happening right now -- meaning that if you want to spend money somewhere, Georgia is the only game in town.

* The stakes: This is probably the most important factor of all. Both national parties see this race as a must-win because of the impact a loss would have on their national message. For Democrats, an Ossoff win -- in a district considered safely Republican for decades -- would provide a major momentum boost and help not only with their fundraising but also with their candidate recruitment for 2018. Republicans see a Handel win as evidence that despite the talk of Trump dragging their candidates down, there's no proof he will.

You combine all of those factors and you get an extremely expensive House race. The most expensive House race ever.
The election between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel to replace the seat vacated by Tom Price becomes the most expensive congressional race in United States history.