DEMS/ELECTION/GOP/TRUMP AS PRESIDENT/TRUMP PEOPLE: “Republicans spent millions of dollars on scorching television ads, pried a reluctant endorsement from Ohio’s moderate governor, used the Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as a foil and enlisted President Trump in a last-minute turnaround effort in a special election for Congress in Ohio. And after all that, in a conservative-leaning district outside Columbus, the Republican candidate clung to the narrowest of leads on Tuesday night. The Republican, Troy Balderson, a state senator who ran a plodding campaign, led his Democratic challenger, Danny O’Connor, by nearly 1 percentage point with all precincts reporting. But 3,435 provisional ballots have yet to be counted, with Mr. Balderson’s margin standing at 1,754. Ohio law provides for an automatic recount if the two candidates are ultimately separated by less than half a percentage point. National Republicans declared victory before midnight, but it could be days or weeks before there is a conclusive result in the race. And regardless of the outcome, Mr. Balderson and Mr. O’Connor will face each other again in three months, in the regularly scheduled November election. But already, Republicans’ brush with catastrophe in Ohio has deepened the party’s gloomy mood, highlighting the massive political mobilization among Democrats and the comparative demoralization of the Republican base. The district that Mr. Balderson may have barely won voted for Mr. Trump by 11 points less than two years ago, and routinely elected Republicans to Congress by landslide margins before that.”
–Jonathan Martin and Alexander Burns, “Ohio Special Election Too Close to Call, as Republican Holds Slim Lead,” The New York Times online, August 7, 2018