Supporters of Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel campaign outside of the East Cobb Government Center on Tuesday in Marietta, Ga., on voting day for the Georgia special election.
Handel was winning 52.5 percent to 47.5 percent with 81 percent of precincts reporting, according to the Associated Press and the New York Times.
Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in the race to replace Tom Price in the race to replace Tom Price, now President Donald Trump's secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in the 6th congressional district.
But if Handel loses, it will be a clear warning sign to House Republicans facing tough races in other suburban districts across the country, many of them among the 23 GOP-held seats where Trump trailed Clinton in 2016.
Despite the best efforts by Samuel L. Jackson, glitter-bombing suburban moms, Ossoff's handsome jawline, and around $30 million, the Democrat could not wrench the congressional seat from the GOP, which has firmly controlled the district for four decades. Mitt Romney won the state in 2012 by double digits, but Trump held only a 1 percent margin past year.
The Democrats are looking to capitalise on the president's low personal approval ratings to win Georgia's sixth district seat.
Ms. Handel becomes the latest in a line of Republicans who have represented the district since Y 1979, beginning with Newt Gingrich, who would become House speaker.
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.
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In special elections in Kansas and Montana, candidates James Thompson and Rob Quist, both Democrats in the Bernie Sanders mold, outperformed expectations but still fell comfortably short of upset victories.
The Palmetto State district hasn't seen the erosion of support for Trump that Georgia's 6th did last November though, and Republican state Rep. Ralph Norman is expected to beat Democrat Archie Parnell, a former tax attorney and financial adviser.
Trump's party also claimed victory in another congressional race Tuesday, in neighboring SC. She pointed voters instead to her "proven conservative record" as a state and local elected official.
Republican Karen Handel has what looks like a commanding lead in the special Georgia congressional race. The president held a fundraiser for her early on, but since other surrogates like Speaker Paul Ryan and Vice President Pence have stumped for her.
On policy, she mostly echoes party leaders.
The two campaigns and outside groups supporting and opposing the candidates shelled out at least $36 million as of May 31, including more than $22 million from Ossoff's campaign. It could also show House incumbents that they can separate themselves from Trump effectively on the campaign trail, and stave off a potential wave of retirements.
Handel and tens of millions of dollars in ads from GOP super PACs called Ossoff an inexperienced liberal who has more in common with California than Georgia. She said she'd have voted for the House Republican health care bill, though she sometimes misrepresented its provisions in debates with Ossoff.
The DCCC alone spent $5 million backing Ossoff's House bid. Shares on the likelihood of Ossoff winning closed above shares on Handel winning continuously since May 16 and saw spreads reaching as high as 36 cents on June 11. She touts traditional supply side economics, going so far as to say during one debate that she does "not support a living wage" - her way of explaining her opposition to a minimum-wage increase. "I think people are actually getting out and saying what they need to say this time, which I think is very important".
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