Karen Handel
Karen HandelReuters

Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, retaining a seat that has been in GOP hands since 1979 after a grueling, four-month campaign that earned the distinction of being the most expensive House race in history.

Handel won by almost 11,000 votes and by more than four percentage points, and Ossoff failed to reach the 48 percent mark that he topped in the initial round of voting in April.

Handel’s win will bring fresh attention to a beleaguered Democratic Party that has suffered a string of defeats in special elections this year despite an angry and engaged base of voters who dislike Trump.

The special congressional election took place because the incumbent representative, Tom Price, was named Secretary of Health and Human Services.

The election, the most expensive House race in history, saw the Democrats invest 23 million dollars in the hope to gain a first victory after their defeat in the presidential election. However they slumped to their fourth defeat since that election, having lost similar elections in Kansas, Montana and South Carolina.

A senior Republican in Georgia estimated before the elections that the shooting incident in which an extremist Democrat sniper shot at Republican congressmen and seriously injured Rep. Steve Scalise would lead to a Republican victory in Georgia.

Brad Carver, director of the Republican party in the 11th precinct in Georgia, told the Washington Post: “I’ll tell you what: I think the shooting is going to win this election for us. Moderates and independents in this district are tired of left-wing extremism. I get that there’s extremists on both sides, but we are not seeing them. We’re seeing absolute resistance to everything this president does. Moderates and independents out there want to give him a chance. Democrats have never given this president a chance."

Carver later apologized for his statements, stating that “politics, human tragedy, and violence don’t mix. I should not have said what I said. I apologize for my remarks.”