News

Actions

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

Posted at 9:33 PM, Jun 20, 2017
and last updated 2017-06-21 06:18:34-04

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.