On Tuesday, Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in the Georgia 6th Congressional District special election in what was the most expensive House race in the history of American politics. With over $50 million being spent by both sides, Handel was able to defeat Ossoff in what was anticipated to be a very close race, according to polls leading up to the election.

As 100% of precincts have been reported, Handel defeated Ossoff 51.9%-48.1%. With just under 260,000 votes casted, Handel was able to receive roughly 10,000 more votes than Ossoff.

The runoff that occurred Tuesday night was the result of the single-ballot special election held on April 18, 2017. If one candidate were able to receive a majority of the vote on April 18, the House seat would already be filled.

Democrats were hopeful that Ossoff would be able to win outright in April, however, to their disappointment, Ossoff was only able to win 48.1% of the vote, thus leading to the runoff last night.

A couple factors could have contributed to Handel’s victory.

The first is the longstanding history the Georgia 6th Congressional District House seat has been in GOP control. The Georgia 6 District has been represented by a Republican since 1979. Turnout was high for this special election, so it is very possible that voters saw the very realistic possibility of losing GOP control in their district and felt the need to preserve Republican control of the district by the power of their vote.

Another is the fact that John Ossoff does not live in the 6th District where he was running. According to Politifact, “Depending on how you map it, he [Ossoff] lives about 2 to 6 miles either from the district or the neighborhood where he was raised.”

President Trump took to Twitter in his usual fashion to point out this possible turn-off to voters. On the morning of June 20, Trump tweeted “Democrat Jon Ossoff, who wants to raise your taxes to the highest level and is weak on crime and security, doesn’t even live in district.”

Ossoff not living in the district he was campaigning in could have proved to be extremely problematic, as Representatives tend to run on the message of being in closest connection with their local citizens. It is much tougher to make this claim if you are Jon Ossoff, seeing as though he does not live in the Georgia 6 District.

The Georgia 6 special election looked promising for Democrats. It was seen that if Ossoff was able to pull out the victory Tuesday night, Democrats would be able to gain lots of momentum in preparation for the 2018 Midterm Elections. As The New York Times put it, “Mr. Ossoff appeared so close to victory that Democrats were allowing themselves to imagine a win that would spur a wave of Republican retirements, a recruitment bonanza and a Democratic fund-raising windfall heading into the 2018 midterm elections.”

However, Republican support in the Georgia 6 District is still strong, and Republicans can breathe a heavy sigh of relief for the time being after Karen Handel’s impressive victory on June 20.