Rick Klein: “The insane money and outsized attention are just two factors that make the race for Georgia’s Sixth Congressional District a less-than-ideal test case; this game won’t be played 50 or 60 times next November. And Democrat Jon Ossoff has resisted resistance-themed messaging, though he has benefited greatly from anti-Trump sentiments that have been channeled into Georgia. But rather than prescriptions for 2018, which are dubious in any special election, this race matters for 2017.”

“President Trump’s beleaguered agenda needs to show it can win on the ballot. Democrats needs to demonstrate that they can convince chunks of Trump voters that they offer a better path, and that energy can equal votes. Interestingly, both sides embraced the national implications of Ossoff-Handel in the closing days of the race. That will change Wednesday. (Cue stories about bad campaigning and inexplicable messaging despite pleas of national operatives.) But the message will have been delivered.”

“It’s Donald Trump. Make no mistake about it. The whole reason this race is competitive today is because of Donald Trump.”

— GOP operative Chip Lake, quoted by the Daily Beast, on the special election in Georgia’s 6th congressional district.

David Nather: “If Democratic contender Jon Ossoff manages to squeeze out a victory tonight in Georgia’s sixth congressional district, it’ll be hard to deny some thematic similarities to Scott Brown’s upset election in 2010. The two aren’t identical, of course: Brown denied Democrats a 60th vote in the Senate; Republicans can easily afford to lose one House seat and still pass a bill.”

“But as canaries in coal mines go, the similarities could be telling. Brown’s victory was all about the ACA, and Ossoff has made health care an integral part of his closing argument in the race for HHS secretary Tom Price’s former seat.”

Nate Silver: “Everything we know about the Georgia 6 special election, from the polls, to the first-round results, to the results of special elections in other districts, to the shifting politics of Georgia 6, suggests that the race ought to be close. So if the race ends in a photo finish, with either Jon Ossoff or Karen Handel edging out the win by a couple of percentage points, it won’t necessarily be the ‘game-changer’ that it’s billed to be in terms of helping us to figure out what will happen in 2018. A blowout win by either candidate would be a bigger deal.”

“However, Republicans have a lot of decisions to make in terms of how to proceed with their unpopular health care bill and an unpopular President Trump. A loss in Georgia 6 wouldn’t necessarily be catastrophic unto itself, but it would be a warning sign that they’d have a lot of trouble ignoring, and it might lead to members in competitive districts starting to think about how to save their own jobs. So whatever the outcome, I’ll be watching how Republicans react as much as the results themselves.”