Republican Karen Handel defeated Democrat Jon Ossoff in Tuesday’s special election for Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District, in what was both the most expensive and most watched congressional campaign in history. The victory is astounding given the “pollaganda effect” — the heavy media coverage in the last two weeks giving Ossoff the lead. It’s a replay of how wrong the Demo/MSM propaganda machine was in 2016.

Breaking all previous records, the candidates and special interest groups spent more than $50 million on this one election — $20 million more than the previous congressional record. (For comparison, Ronald Reagan spent $28 million on his re-election campaign in 1984, but adjusted for inflation, more was spent in this single district campaign.) Ossoff, who collected most of his funding from rich liberals in California and Massachusetts, outspent Handel 7-1 (seven to one) — and still couldn’t pull it off.

Democrats insisted, right up until Handel’s victory, that this election was a referendum on Donald Trump, but it is more a referendum on the Democrats’ failure to understand Americans outside the Beltway and their elitist East Coast urban centers. Yes, this was Dr. Tom Price’s district (now Trump’s HHS Secretary), but if this was just about Trump, his low approval rating should have opened the door wide for a Democrat win — especially given that Trump only won the district by a narrow 1.5% margin last year. But Handel defeated Ossoff with a 5% margin — so much for the Democrats’ blustering about “narrowing victory margins.” Of course, maybe the Russians hacked the results…

Democrats were apoplectic. Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH), who failed to unseat Nancy Pelosi as House minority leader last year, lamented, “It’s Trump four and us zero.” Demos may be 0 for 4 in special elections since 2016, however believing this somehow assures Republicans will retain the House in 2018 is akin to whistling past a graveyard – Democrats never thought the GOP could retake the House in the 2010 midterm. Ryan continued, “Our brand is worse than Trump,” and he says Democrats “talked to a black person about voting rights, a brown person about immigration, a gay about gay rights, a woman about choice and on and on, slicing up the electorate. But they forgot that first and foremost, people have to pay their mortgages and get affordable health care.” Of course, the Democrats playbook is all about dividing and conquering!

Sen. Chris Murphy (D-CT) warned, “The fact that we have spent so much time talking about Russia has been a distraction from what should be the clear contrast between Democrats and the Trump agenda, which is on economics.” According to The New York Times, “Part of the Democrats’ challenge now is that the jobless rate is low, and many of the districts they are targeting are a lot like the Georgia seat: thriving suburbs filled with voters who have only watched their portfolios grow since Mr. Trump took office.”

Political commentator Tucker Carlson nailed it: “Democrats still have no idea why they keep losing elections. If they did, they would have run a real candidate, with a real job who understands the constituents he is attempting to represent.”

Meanwhile, in a little watched House election in South Carolina, Republican Ralph Normal defeated Democrat Archie Parnell.