Democrat Danny O’Connor is within striking distance of Republican Troy Balderson in an Ohio congressional district that has elected Republicans for decades and went for President Trump by 11 points.
If O’Connor prevails on Tuesday in the last special election before November, it’s sure to send another round of shockwaves through the Republican Party and boost the already excited Democratic base.
The 12th District of Ohio stretches from northern Columbus into the suburbs and rural communities. It was gerrymandered in favor of Republicans and hasn’t voted for a Democrat since 1980. But Trump’s presidency coupled with the open seat, left vacant by former GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi, have created a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats in a seat many election trackers say they had no business competing in.
But O’Connor, an uncontroversial centrist Democrat who attracted little national attention until recently, has narrowed what appeared to be an insurmountable gap The race is in a dead heat with a recent poll putting O’Connor just one point behind Balderson.
O’Connor has steered clear of liberal rallying cries around abolishing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and making Medicare coverage universal. He’s described by supporters as a “calm” voice in an otherwise chaotic political atmosphere and “level-headed.”
He brings “sanity” and “common sense” to the race, said Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, a Democrat who has stumped for O’Connor and advised him.
“We are experiencing a lot of chaos, a lot of conflict and unnecessarily so,” Ryan said of Trump’s administration and Congress. “I think people are looking to temperament and values more so than where you stand on the issues because we’re beyond that, we’re eroding our institutions; we have a president who intentionally divides Americans.”
Where O’Connor has said he’ll be a check on Trump and focused on GOP efforts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Balderson has aligned himself with the president.
Republicans have spent more than $4 million to prevent a defeat similar to the one they suffered in Pennsylvania’s 18th Congressional District earlier this year. Democrat Conor Lamb beat a Trump-backed Republican in a district that went for the president by 20 points in 2016. But Pennsylvania’s 18th District had deep Democratic roots.
In contrast, Ohio’s 12th District historically trends red and though it went for Trump by a smaller margin in 2016, the climb for Democrats is arguably steeper. That makes O’Connor’s surge in the final stretch all the more surprising, according to Paul Beck, a professor at Ohio State University.
Beck lives in the district and says that while Balderson has dominated the airwaves, O’Connor appears to have a stronger ground game. O’Connor’s path to victory, Beck said, depends on driving up turnout in the bluer Columbus-area of the district and the suburbs of Delaware County.
In a last-ditch effort to boost Balderson, Trump is holding a rally in Delaware County Saturday. Republicans have used much of the same tactics in the Pennsylvania special in Ohio, hitting O’Connor with ads tying him to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., who is bitterly unpopular with GOP voters.
“After lying the whole campaign dishonest Danny O’Connor now admits he’d vote for Pelosi,” says a recent 30-second ad, paid for by the Congressional Leadership Fund, a group aligned with House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis.
O’Connor fumbled a hypothetical question in an interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews last week, providing one of his only gaffes of the campaign, and fresh fodder for Republicans. O’Connor has repeatedly said he would not vote for Pelosi for Democratic leader if he were elected, but Matthews badgered O’Connor, asking if he would still vote against her on the House floor if he had to cast a deciding vote that determined whether a Republican would control the House or Pelosi. It’s an improbable scenario.
“Nancy Pelosi was a much easier target when Barack Obama was in the White House and you could connect it all together but President Trump’s star outshines Pelosi’s in terms of affecting political environment,” said Geoffrey Skelley, an editor of the nonpartisan election tracker Sabato’s Crystal Ball.
Sabato’s Crystal Ball waited longer than most trackers to change the rating of the Ohio 12th race to a “toss-up,” mainly because of the big registration advantage Republicans hold in the district. But after O’Connor’s momentum grew, they shifted the race.
“If [Democrats] flip it that will send a full on panic attack through the GOP, but they should be pretty worried anyway,” said Skelley.
Tim Ryan echoed Skelley, saying O’Connor “inoculated” himself against attacks based on a few jumbled comments on “a cable TV show” about Pelosi.
“If we win it’s an earthquake,” said the congressman. “But if we come real close then it’s still shifting momentum into our favor because we shouldn’t even be in the game here.”
