DUNWOODY, Ga. — A narrow miss by a Democratic newcomer in a conservative Georgia House district has triggered a high-stakes runoff that could test President Donald Trump’s influence and the limits of the backlash against him.

Democrat Jon Ossoff, a 30-year-old former congressional aide fueled by a colossal fundraising haul from out-of-state donors, came within two percentage points of an outright victory Tuesday over 17 other candidates in Georgia’s traditionally Republican 6th Congressional District.

Republican Karen Handel, a former Georgia secretary of state, lagged in a distant second, qualifying her for the runoff. Well known to voters, Handel had treated Trump gingerly in a district the president barely carried, but declared Wednesday she’d like to see him campaign for her ahead of the June 20 runoff.

“We want everybody who is supportive of Republicans, so absolutely,” Handel told The Associated Press after taking a congratulatory call from Trump on Wednesday. “We are going to be united from this point going forward.”

Trump, who attacked Ossoff in recent days as a liberal shill and mocked him for living outside of the district, crowed on Twitter about the outcome in Georgia following Democrats’ failure to win a different special election in Kansas last week.

“Dems failed in Kansas and are now failing in Georgia. Great job Karen Handel! It is now Hollywood vs. Georgia on June 20th,” Trump wrote, alluding to celebrity donors to Ossoff.

Still, the close finishes in Georgia as well as conservative Kansas underscored Democrats’ potential to capitalize on surging liberal energy following Trump’s election, even as they also pointed to the limits of how far Democrats can go in Republican-friendly districts.

The Kansas and Georgia races also serve notice that GOP candidates may struggle to handle Trump, who alienates many independents and even some Republicans. In fact, Trump arguably gave Ossoff his opening in the first place; Trump barely won the Georgia 6th in November and failed to win a majority, four years after Republican Mitt Romney got more than 60 percent of the presidential vote.

Both major parties are approaching the runoff in Georgia as an important test ahead of the 2018 midterm elections. Democrats have a long-shot chance of taking back control of the House next year and breaking the GOP’s monopoly control of Washington. But it will require picking up more than 20 seats and winning over droves of voters like those in the affluent, well-educated 6th District of Georgia.

Winning such a seat will depend on Ossoff keeping voters like Shari Springle engaged in the race. The 54-year-old organized a Facebook group, “Liberal Moms of Roswell and Cobb,” in 2015. She says it proliferated since Trump’s victory, with several members acting as precinct captains for Ossoff.

Springle’s take Wednesday was simple: “Let’s get to work.”

But she’ll run up against Handel backers like 82-year-old Bev Wingate. The Dunwoody retiree and Handel volunteer says Republicans were too cautious in the primary for fear they’d “step on toes.” Now, she says, she’s free to ask all her friends and neighbors to be “on our team.”

DuBose Porter, chairman of the Georgia Democratic Party, said the district offers the perfect setting for Democrats to prove their momentum heading into 2018. “If we can get over 50 percent in this district, we know we can do that statewide and around the country,” Porter said, mocking Republican assertions that Ossoff failed Tuesday by falling short of an outright primary victory.

“Only the Republicans could try to define this as a defeat for the Democrats,” said Porter.

At the White House, spokesman Sean Spicer tried to do exactly that. “The reaction has somewhat been, you know, that they almost won. No, they lost!” Spicer said. “They spent $8.3 million dollars and threw everything including the kitchen sink at it, and lost.”

Spicer did not mention that outside Republican groups also plowed millions into attacking Ossoff and encouraging GOP turnout; a political action committee backed by House Speaker Paul Ryan and other House GOP leaders accounted for at least $2.2 million.

As for whether Trump will campaign with Handel, Spicer said: “We’ll see if we’re needed.”

Other Republicans saw clear warning signs in Tuesday night’s outcome. GOP Rep. Tom Cole of Oklahoma, an ally of House leadership, said congressional Republicans must start showing they can lead after the failure of their health care legislation, or risk voters snatching away their majorities.

“The Democratic base is totally engaged, totally fired up, and anybody that thinks that is going to go away I think is whistling past the political graveyard,” Cole said. “The only way you fight that is … fire up the Republican base. And to do that, strangely enough, you have to govern.”

For his part, Ossoff said for weeks his goal was to win outright, but he rejected any notion that he lost. “We have defied the odds … shattered expectations,” Ossoff told supporters, adding that they’d “carry us to victory” in June.

The runoff victor will succeed Republican Tom Price, who resigned to join Trump’s administration as health secretary. Price won 62 percent of the vote in November, about 14 percentage points ahead of Trump’s total.

More tests await, with special elections approaching in Montana and South Carolina in May and June.

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Associated Press reporter Kathleen Foody contributed. Werner reported from Washington. Follow Barrow on Twitter at https://twitter.com/BillBarrowAP and Werner at https://twitter.com/ericawerner

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

NEW YORK — With its biggest star departing in another blowup over sexual harassment, Fox News faces some big challenges. It now has to show that it can hang on to its loyal army of conservative viewers, improve its working culture, and still continue to make big bucks for its corporate parent.

The company said Wednesday that it had parted ways with longtime host Bill O’Reilly after a “thorough and careful review of allegations against him.” Dozens of advertisers ditched “The O’Reilly Factor” after a New York Times report detailed $13 million in payouts to five women over his alleged abusive behavior; more allegations subsequently emerged. (O’Reilly denied the accusations.)

O’Reilly’s departure is the second big blow for conservatives’ favorite news network in nine months. Fox’s longtime CEO Roger Ailes resigned abruptly amid similar sexual harassment charges last July. Its leading female star, Megyn Kelly, also decamped for NBC in January.

The network’s parent company, entertainment giant 21st Century Fox, insisted that Fox News will weather the current storm, noting in a statement the “strength of its talent bench” and expressing “full confidence that the network will continue to be a powerhouse in cable news.”

That certainly could happen, though it probably won’t be easy.

MONEY MACHINE

Some analysts believe that James and Lachlan Murdoch — the sons of 21st Century Fox executive chairman Rupert Murdoch — made the call on O’Reilly to change the Ailesian culture at the network and to cement their control following his departure.

“Getting rid of the old guard is a way to do that,” said Dan Cassino, a professor at Fairleigh Dickinson University and the author of “Fox News American Politics: How One Channel Shapes American Politics Society.”

But O’Reilly has been on Fox News for more than two decades. “The O’Reilly Factor” has generated a huge ad bonanza for Fox, one that yielded more than $178 million in 2015. It’s the top-rated show on the No. 1 cable network — one that, according to the investment bank Nomura’s estimates, accounts for fully 20 percent of profits at 21st Century Fox.

Now, the top ratings for O’Reilly’s time slot — and Fox’s other prime-time shows — could be at risk. “He’s been the linchpin” of the lineup, said Jane Hall, an American University professor and former Fox contributor, who noted that it will take a while to see whether his loyal audience sticks with O’Reilly’s replacement.

That will be Tucker Carlson, whose show is moving to the 8 p.m. slot on Fox. O’Reilly’s ratings overshadow Carlson’s, and his show’s viewership fell this week while he was on vacation and other Fox hosts subbed in.

Others figure that O’Reilly’s firing won’t be a sticking point for most Fox viewers. “When we look at data, at what programs people report watching, you just don’t find people who watch Bill O’Reilly and nothing else on Fox,” Cassino said.

Fox also has a big financial safety cushion in the fees cable companies pay the network, which dwarf its ad revenue, according to Nomura media analyst Anthony DiClemente. Even if there’s some disruption in ad rates or spots, he said, there’s a “massive backstop” in those payments, which are long-term deals.

BROADER AMBITIONS

Fox might also have found it financially risky let O’Reilly remain. Otherwise, the network risked developing “a reputation as unfriendly to women, potentially turning off a lot of people,” said Charles Taylor, a marketing professor at Villanova University. Advertisers may have been reluctant to return if there were continuing harassment complaints. It could also have alienated employees.

And 21st Century Fox is much bigger than O’Reilly, Fox News and its aging, conservative audience. It’s home to movie and TV studios; a slew of sports and other cable channels; and the Fox broadcast network and shows like “The Simpsons,” ‘’Family Guy,” and its latest hit, “Empire.”

It’s also home to ambitions that the O’Reilly crisis may have hindered. Fox owns 39 percent of European TV giant Sky, and has long wanted to take over the whole company. Its previous effort died in 2011, a casualty of the phone-hacking scandal at Rupert Murdoch’s British newspapers. It’s now trying again, although a U.K. media regulator must certify that the combined company would be a “fit and proper” owner of the broadcaster.

“Credit to James and Lachlan for doing the right thing here,” said DiClemente, who noted that dealing with the O’Reilly controversy “in the right way” could be helpful for the Sky review.

The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York is investigating how 21st Century Fox handled the Roger Ailes scandal. Concern over whether Fox broke the law by failing to disclose its settlements to investors is more likely to impact approval than whether the company is mired in sexual misconduct allegations, said Claire Enders of Enders Analysis, who has studied the Murdoch empire for years.

TALKING CULTURE CHANGE

When it announced Ailes’ departure last summer, 21st Century Fox said that it would “continue our commitment to maintaining a work environment based on trust and respect.” But the New York Times reported that two of the O’Reilly settlements were reached after Ailes left.

In a Wednesday memo to employees signed by all three Murdochs and provided to The Associated Press, Fox again emphasized its commitment to a workplace culture of “trust and respect.” The company is making “a pretty big statement” to that effect by dropping O’Reilly, said Hall, the American University professor.

Longtime Fox critics don’t see it. Fox News has a “culture of harassment that did not start and does not end with Bill O’Reilly,” said Rashad Robinson, executive director of the activist group Color of Change, which pressured advertisers to leave his show. Ousting O’Reilly, he said, “does not speak to a changed culture. It speaks to a company that has recognized that the best business decision for them is to end their relationship with Bill O’Reilly.”

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Jill Lawless from London contributed to this report.

Copyright 2017 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.