DUNWOODY, Ga. (AP) — A Georgia congressional election in a historically conservative district is headed to a runoff that raises the stakes in an early measure for President Donald Trump and both major parties ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. 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. At one point, Ossoff’s chief Republican rival, Karen Handel, a former Secretary of State in Georgia who has also run, unsuccessfully, for the Republican nominations for governor and senator, drove by and stopped for a red light. His combatant was a giggling eight-year-old boy who didn’t grasp the broader sabering context: soon after Ossoff declared his candidacy to replace Trump’s Secretary of Health and Human Services, Tom Price, in January, an odd attack ad appeared, showing Ossoff, in his Georgetown days, dressed as Han Solo from “Star Wars,” for a spoof film made by Ossoff’s college a-cappella group. But the matchup in greater Atlanta’s northern suburbs is just as much about Ossoff and Handel acting as proxies for the nation’s roiled political atmosphere. Leaders in both major parties agree the race offers a prime test run for 2018 elections, because the affluent, well-educated Georgia district is replete with the kind of voters Democrats must attract to reclaim a House majority and win more gubernatorial and Senate races. Thompson, unlike Ossoff, had just a few hundred thousand dollars at his campaign’s disposal, and tougher math to deal with: Trump had won Kansas’s Fourth District by twenty-seven points in November, while the President only took Georgia’s Sixth by one. Yet falling short also highlights the party’s lingering power deficit in Washington and around the country. “There is no doubt this is already a victory for the ages,” Ossoff told his supporters, praising them for a campaign that has collected more than $8.3 million, most of it from well beyond Georgia. Having already endured several million in attacks from national Republican outfits, Ossoff said he’s ready for more. “And they’re not going to be turned off by Handel.” Galloway said that he would be “mildly surprised” if Ossoff won outright on Tuesday. 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. It also serves notice that GOP candidates may always struggle to handle Trump’s polarizing effects; he engenders an intense loyalty among his core supporters but alienates many independents and even Republicans. Handel has treated Trump gingerly throughout, rarely mentioning him unless she’s asked and even then cautioning she isn’t a “rubber stamp” for anyone. “I certainly support the president and will work with him where we agree,” Handel told The Associated Press at one of her final campaign stops before polls opened. “But my job ... is to be the representative for the people of the 6th District, and that's what I believe regardless of who is the president.”

That distinguished her from other Republican contenders she left to squabble over who is more loyal to Trump. One of Handel’s closest competitors, technology executive Bob Gray, even donned hip waders for one television spot as he paid homage to the president by, literally, draining a swamp. The campaigns, advocacy groups and even the president himself moved quickly to frame Tuesday’s outcome in their favor. Handel began to consolidate a fractured party. She trailed Ossoff by more than a 2-to-1 margin, but drew immediate endorsements from some of her fellow GOP candidates and national party leaders, including House Speaker Paul Ryan. She did not immediately get a nod from the conservative Club for Growth, a Washington organization that spent six figures attacking her as a big-spending “career politician.”

 Republicans believe a two-candidate scenario will embolden conservative voters and make it harder for Ossoff to campaign above the fray as he has thus far. “There will certainly be a clear contrast,” Handel told AP. Trump, who took to social media in the campaign’s closing days to heckle Ossoff and encourage Republicans, crowed on his personal Twitter account: “Despite major outside money, FAKE media support and eleven Republican candidates, Big ‘R’ win with runoff in Georgia. Glad to be of help!”

 In fact, Trump gave Ossoff his opening in the first place. The president barely edged Hillary Clinton here in November, falling short of a majority four years after Republican Mitt Romney got more than 60 percent of the presidential vote. As Trump carried out his Twitter barrage against Ossoff earlier Tuesday, a White House spokeswoman insisted the race wasn’t a “referendum” on the president. "I wouldn't use the word referendum," said spokesman Sarah Huckabee Sanders. Ossoff has capitalized on anti-Trump energy while still trying to appeal to independents and moderate Republicans — his only path to victory. Ossoff recently landed on the cover of New York magazine, which called him “The Trump-Hate Weather Vane,” and stories have also appeared in Time and The Atlantic. This is a story about this community at this moment in history,” he said Tuesday night, casting the race as a choice about “the kind of country” the United States will be, though he never named Trump. Republicans have made their own attempts at nationalizing the campaign. A political action committee backed by Ryan and other House GOP leaders funneled more than $2 million into attacks on Ossoff, tying him to national Democrats like House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi. The California Democrat remains an unpopular figure in the district. Handel spends most of her efforts touting her record in public office, but makes a point to join in the Pelosi bashing. In one of his TV spots currently flooding Atlanta’s airwaves, Ossoff says, of the President, “He’s not only embarrassing us on the world stage—he could start an unnecessary war.”

Ossoff can afford to blanket local television in part thanks to the millions of dollars that have poured into his campaign from individual donors all over the country.
Democratic candidates face off with Republican candidates in a primary for a U.S. House seat vacated by Tom Price, now Health and Human Services Secretary, in a suburb of Atlanta, Georgia.