Setback for Democrats

– Republican Karen Handel won a high-stakes, closely watched special congressional election on Tuesday, salvaging a seat in traditional conservative Georgia where Democrats had hoped to strike a blow against Donald Trump’s presidency.

Handel, an establishment Republican and former state secretary of state, defeated Democratic challenger and political novice Jon Ossoff by about five percentage points, multiple US networks projected, denying Democrats their first election victory of the year.

Her win marked an impressive rebound from polling that showed her narrowly trailing her rival in the run up to the vote and signalled that Republican disillusionment about Trump was not as deep as Democrats were counting on.

In her victory speech, Handel even gave “a special thanks to the president of United States of America” as the crowd went wild, chanting Trump’s name.

The result comes as relief for Republicans, who had grown concerned about whether their party, buffeted by the scandals that have plagued the president, could hold the seat in Georgia’s sixth district. – AFP