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Projection: GOP holds on to two House seats during special election

<p>Republican Karen Handel has pulled off a come-from-behind win against her Democratic rival Jon Ossoff in the special election for the 6th District of Georgia. Handel will fill the congressional seat Tom Price left when he became health and human services secretary.</p><p>Ossoff was pretty consistently running ahead of Handel going into the race, but Georgia's 6th has been a consistently red district. Other than President Donald Trump who only won by 1 point in 2016, Republicans usually put up huge numbers there. Price won his seat <a href="https://ballotpedia.org/Georgia%27s_6th_Congressional_District_election,_2016" target="_blank">by 23 points</a>, and Mitt Romney beat President Barack Obama <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2017/06/20/politics/georgia-house-results-ossoff-handel/index.html" target="_blank">by the same amount</a> in 2012.</p><p>Most special elections don't get this much media attention, but it's turned into the most expensive House race in history at <a href="http://politics.blog.ajc.com/2017/06/19/the-race-for-georgias-6th-district-now-costs-more-than-50m/" target="_blank">$50 million</a>, and both sides put a lot of stock and star power in the seat. The early voting period garnered <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/ap-in-georgia-a-cacophony-of-arguments-could-tilt-house-race-2017-6" target="_blank">140,000 votes</a> alone.</p><p><b>SEE MORE: <a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/republican-ron-estes-wins-special-election-in-kansas/">GOP Holds On To House Seat In Kansas Special Election</a></b></p><p>The loss isn't the worst thing for Democrats, but it hurts. It would have been the first race Democrats won since Trump was elected president and the first in a string of special elections where they have tried to take the grassroots anger and outrage against Trump and turn it into votes and a win.</p><p>The GOP will tout this as a win not just for Handel but for Trump as well. It's just one race, but a Republican win in Georgia means Republican voters are still sticking with the GOP, despite the president's historically low popularity.</p><hr><b>Trending stories at <a href="http://www.newsy.com">Newsy.com</a></b><ul class="inline-related-links"><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/trump-says-warmbier-should-have-been-brought-home-sooner/">Warmbier Death Pushes Potential Trump-Kim Meeting 'Further Away'</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/pew-analysis-questions-if-prison-deters-drug-use/">Why Some Researchers Want The Trump Team To Rethink The War On Drugs</a></li><li><a href="http://www.newsy.com/stories/trump-wants-overhaul-of-government-s-outdated-technology/">The Government Still Uses Floppy Disks — Trump Wants To Change That</a></li></ul>
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With a pair of open House seats up for grabs on Tuesday, Republicans are hoping to hang on to the seats once held by current Trump administration officials. It appears the GOP will narrowly sweep Tuesday's special election. 

Of the two races, the House seat in Georgia's sixth district was the tightest and most competitive. The seat was held by Tom Price, the secretary of Health and Human Services. Price won the district by 23 points in November. 

Republican Karen Handel will win the seat after Tuesday's special election, although her win will be by a much smaller margin than Price's victory last November. With 100 percent of the district reporting, Handel leads by a 52 to 48 margin over Democrat Jon Ossoff.

The race between Ossoff and Handel was considered the most expensive House race in history, with an estimated $50 spent between the two candidates. 

In South Carolina, Ralph Norman will keep the state's fifth district under Republican control for another 18 months. The seat was vacated in February when Mick Mulvaney left to become Trump's director of the Office of Budget and Management. 

Mulvaney won the seat with at least 78 percent of the vote. Just six months later, it appears Norman will hold off his Democratic challenger Norman by less than a 5 percent margin.