Polls closed tonight at 7 PM ET in Georgia’s 6th Congressional District, where a special election is being held to replace former Republican Rep. Tom Price, who resigned to join Donald Trump’s cabinet. This suburban Atlanta seat has been in GOP hands since its creation in 1992, and Mitt Romney won it 61-37 in 2012. However, it swung sharply against Trump, who carried it by just 48-47. Polls show an incredibly tight race between Democrat Jon Ossoff and Republican Karen Handel. This is the most expensive House race in American history.
To help you follow along tonight, we have the results for each of GA-06’s counties for both the 2016 presidential election and for the April all-party primary. Tom Bonier of TargetSmart has put together a viewing guide to give us an idea of what the early vote totals will mean for Ossoff’s chances. In April, the early vote was disproportionately Democratic, but there’s no guarantee it will be again.
There is also a special election in South Carolina’s 5th District to replace Republican Mick Mulvaney between Republican Ralph Norman and Democrat Archie Parnell in this 57-39 Trump seat.
Results: GA-06: AP (by district, by county, by precinct) | SC-05: AP (by district, by county), Secretary of State
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2017 · 1:43:06 AM +00:00
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Steve Singiser
We have one race in the books, and one race remaining to be called, as we are midway through the evening. In SC-05, the AP has already called the race for Republican Ralph Norman. However, and this is important: he only defeated Democrat Archie Parnell by a 51-48 margin (with 99% reporting). Why is that relevant? Because this is a district that Donald Trump carried by a 57-39 margin just a few months ago. Meanwhile, in GA-06, with about half of the precincts in, Republican Karen Handel holds a 53-47 lead over Democrat Jon Ossoff. However, the most Republican-friendly county (Cobb) is mostly in, while far less of Democratic-leaning DeKalb County has reported.
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2017 · 1:46:53 AM +00:00
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Steve Singiser
GA-06: We just had another healthy drop of precincts, this time from Fulton County. These had the effect of stretching out Karen Handel’s lead fractionally. The raw vote lead now is nearing 11,000, which still amounts to a 53-47 margin. We are now at 65 percent of all precincts reporting.
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2017 · 1:53:40 AM +00:00
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Steve Singiser
GA-06: We have a definite good news/bad news scenario in the latest drop of numbers. The good news is that Democrat Jon Ossoff has moved within 8000 votes of Karen Handel courtesy of the latest batch of numbers. The bad news is that the movement is because of DeKalb reporting almost all of its precincts plus its mail-in tally. While Ossoff did well among the 7400 mail-in votes in DeKalb, it was not enough to really make a huge dent in Handel’s lead.
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2017 · 2:03:10 AM +00:00
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Steve Singiser
GA-06: Cobb emptied about half of what it had remaining, and that pushed Handel back out to a lead of about 10,000 votes (52-48). However, we still don’t have the mail-in vote for either Fulton or Cobb, which leaned heavily Democrat (even in GOP-friendly Cobb County) last time around.
Wednesday, Jun 21, 2017 · 2:07:42 AM +00:00
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Steve Singiser
GA-06: At this point, the one variable that could make things very interesting is the mail-in vote. In DeKalb County, which has recorded its VBM already, there were 7400 ballots sent by mail, of which Jon Ossoff won 73.5 percent. In April, there were only around 2200 VBMs cast in DeKalb. If there were similar bursts in the other two counties, it could cut the gap significantly. Now, let’s be clear: it seems unlikely that it would completely eclipse Handel’s current advantage, but it could take a significant chunk out of it.