Georgia voters streaming to the polls in pricy Congress race

In that race, Ossoff received 48 percent of the vote.

Ossoff, a political newcomer, nearly won the race outright in a 16-candidate primary in April, which triggered Tuesday's runoff election with Handel.

Pamphlets sit outside the campaign office of Jon Ossoff, Democratic candidate for Georgia's 6th congressional district in Chamblee, Ga., Monday, June 19, 2017. Of the 18 candidates in the contest, 11 were republicans.

Special election results are trickling in, county by county.

SC is also holding its special election on Tuesday, but Republicans are expected to hold the GOP-trending seat.

Jon Ossoff's longshot dream of flipping an historically Republican congressional district has ended in failure - despite a massive effort by Democrats to send a humiliating message Donald Trump.

Her victory comes after Republican special congressional election wins in Montana, Kansas and SC.

Soon afterwards, Mr Ossoff appeare to speak to his supporters in the ballroom of the Westin Perimeter Hotel in Atlanta.

What are the factors playing into the competitive and expensive race for a House seat in Georgia? Georgia's outcome follows similar results in Montana, Kansas and SC, where Republicans won special House races by much narrower margins than they managed as recently as November.

Republicans immediately crowed over winning a seat that Democrats spent 30 million dollars (£23 million) trying to flip.

Handel commended Ossoff and pledged to work for his supporters.

Holder, now leading a project with Obama to fight Republican gerrymandering, attributed growing interest in redistricting, a highly technical and legally intricate subject, to a desire among Democrats for "concrete ways to channel that resistance to Trump". State officials, though, say they're confident the technology is secure and no problems had been reported by Tuesday afternoon.

Tuesday's victory marks a political comeback for Handel, a former Georgia secretary of State who had launched unsuccessful runs for governor and Senate. "And a special thanks to the President", she said.

The affluent and well-educated district has elected former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; Johnny Isakson, now Georgia's senior us senator; and most recently Tom Price, who resigned in February to join Trump's administration. 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. Handel emphasized that pedigree often during her campaign and again during her victory speech.

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.

"My pledge is to be part of the solution, to focus on governing", she said.

Meanwhile, Democrats tried to paint Handel as a career politician with ties to Trump and the White House. She rarely mentioned him, despite holding a closed-door fundraiser with him earlier this spring.

Handel, 55, embraces her experience as a statewide and local elected official.

Republicans sought to frame Ossoff as a rubber stamp for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's (D-Calif.) agenda, attacking him for his huge amount of out-of-state campaign contributions.

Donald Trump, who was dining with vice president Mike Pence at the vice president's residence last night when the results started coming in, was not the only person happy with the result.

Spending on candidates was put at $56 million, making it the costliest Congressional election in USA history. The Republican campaign establishment, however, helped make up the difference.