ANALYSIS: What Handel's win and Ossoff's loss mean for Republicans and Democrats

ATLANTA -- Republican Karen Handel avoided a major upset Tuesday night, winning the special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District.

The Georgia secretary of state confirmed that with 100 percent of precincts reporting, Handel won, with 132,459 votes, or 52.13 percent. Democratic candidate Jon Ossoff got 121,635 votes, or 47.87 percent.

Seeing an opportunity in this educated, affluent suburban district north of Atlanta, where Donald Trump barely beat Hillary Clinton in November, Democrats poured tens of millions of dollars into this race but still came up short.

Their base had money and energy, but instead of sending a warning for next year's midterms, it's the Republicans who landed the last word.

From conversations with voters here the last few days, it was apparent to many Republicans that this race was not about Trump as much as it was about Capitol Hill. Folks here were proud to vote Republican — even the ones who said outright that they didn't love the president. They are conservatives and have been for a long time. They respect small government, believe that a GOP D.C. can bring real results, want a strong military and think the possibility of a Nancy Pelosi Big Dem takeover would be worse than any turmoil in the White House.

That said, there were plenty of people at Handel's victory party and throughout the district sporting "Make America great again" hats (and bedazzled MAGA pins). This race will have to change some of the national discourse that, even six months after the election, is still quick to paint Trump fans as uneducated or racist somehow. As The New York Times has reported, this is one of the most educated districts in the nation, and people here are tired of these stereotypes.

As we have seen around the country, there is great distrust of Trump's negative polling numbers here. People say they are just wrong. And there's an overwhelming frustration with what they see as widespread media bias. The Russia probe? Crazy conspiracy theories, to many.

A lot of Republicans on the Hill come from districts with much slimmer margins and will take in Tuesday's results with an exhale instead of a cheer. As for their legislative agenda, they will probably chin up a bit. Handel's win validates their work as much as anything else.

Ossoff's loss will likely be spun on the left as a validation of progressives' agenda. As counterintuitive as that sounds, Bernie Sanders' folks will see this as more reason to back only candidates willing to take bold economic and social policy positions, like single-payer health insurance, which Ossoff shied away from. They will argue that the party wasted money on a young candidate with no personality or backbone and that people need a clear agenda to vote for. But either way, the Democrats spent a lot of money. Ossoff's fiancee told the crowd they changed the face of the district — but not enough to send a Democrat to Washington.