NEWARK, Ohio — In a special election for Congress, the single most important message to get across is often the date of the election.
“It just might be the most critical thing you leave the voters with,” said Wade Rogers, who was with his 15-year-old nephew and wife Ana at the rally Vice President Mike Pence hosted July 30 for Republican Troy Balderson. For the record, the special election pitting Balderson against Democrat Danny O’Connor and Green Party nominee Joe Manchik is scheduled for Tuesday, Aug. 7.
Pence left no doubt in the packed event hall in the center of picturesque Newark. He repeated the Aug. 7 date no less than a dozen times. He even made the attendees repeat it back to him.
It is a special election, and like most special elections, commentators bill it as an indicator of what is to come in November. How mighty is the “blue wave,” how do suburban Republicans feel about President Trump, and what is the nation’s mood overall?
Then again, maybe the election just tells us what is happening in central Ohio at the moment. Maybe we journalists simply overanalyze these low-turnout affairs. It wasn’t that long ago that the Democrats won the first seven House special elections in the 2010 cycle, and then got trounced in the midterm elections.
The likelihood is high that this Ohio seat will stay Republican (the GOP has held it for 40 years). But it’s not guaranteed (Democrats are pumped to show up everywhere). Little polling has been done, and those few surveys show a race that is tightening at the end with Balderson holding a slim lead.
Outside the Pence event, Democratic activists, with signs covering every issue imaginable, chant slogans and attempt to engage with GOP supporters. One gentleman with a bull-horn chants, “Balderson hates puppies,” at the folks trying to enter.
“The Trump hysteria kind of gets old,” Wade Rogers says. “Especially when you walk up here to come in line, the first time you’ve ever been this political — where we’ve come to a rally of any sort — and when you hear the opposition over there screaming, ‘Troy Balderson hates puppies.’ I mean, to me, that’s people that’s out of sync with normalcy.”
Wade Rogers, who had never been very political, says he knows what is at stake, not just for this special election, but also to show up in November. He addresses the question on many reporters’ minds: Is he satisfied enough with the results of the Trump presidency to take the time to vote for a member of Congress, not once, but twice this year?
“Absolutely,” he says with a broad grin.
“We need to keep showing up. It’s important that the president has a Republican Congress to help pass his agenda for the next two years. You don’t take these things for granted,” he said.
His wife, Ana, is the daughter of a Guatemalan immigrant who came to this country in 1968, served in the U.S. Army, and then earned his citizenship. She agrees. “My father, a true patriot to this country, instilled in me the importance of showing up to vote. I have been more than thrilled with this administration and I understand how important it is to show up for these congressional races,” she added.
The Rogerses, both 42, have two adult daughters who serve in the U.S. Navy. Neither of them watch cable new television. “Oh we turned that off a while ago,” explains Ana Rogers, who says there is a big world out here not filled with cable new bickering and grandstanding.
Attending alone, Danny Barren was one of many young people packed into the event to hear what the vice president had to say and to show his support for Balderson. Towering well over 6 feet, the serious-minded biochemistry and theology major at Wittenberg University is also an offensive lineman for the team, and a proud libertarian.
The 20 year-old native of Gahanna, Ohio, says he will vote in person in the special election Tuesday and via absentee ballot in the fall for the Republican House nominee. Barren supports Trump’s policies, but is not so thrilled with his rhetoric. “For me it can get to be a little too much,” he says.
Balderson’s event could not have been more enthusiastic, the room was packed and the overflow crowd filled the lobby and spilled out into the streets. As the Pence-Balderson motorcade drove out of town, people lined the square to wave.
When the news hit Thursday that Trump was coming Saturday for yet another rally, observers wondered: Has the race dangerously tightened and O’Connor was on the cusp of a Conor Lamb-type win? Or did the president just want to drive a sure thing home with an appearance?
We won’t know any of those answers until Tuesday evening — and the likelihood that we overanalyze the results is a given. But one thing is for certain: Trump voters are excited to turn out in Ohio, they understand not just the optics but the policy implications if they don’t — likely more so than the Trump supporters did in previous special elections.
