So there’s another special election coming up for another vacant GOP congressional seat in August. This time, in Ohio. Right now, Monmouth University’s recent polling shows the GOP has the edge but it’s very uncertain:
Republican State Senator Troy Balderson appears to have a slight advantage over Democratic county official Danny O’Connor in the special House of Representatives contest in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District. The election to fill the vacant seat will be held on August 7, but the Monmouth University Poll finds that few voters in either party show a lot of interest in the race.
Balderson holds a 43% to 33% lead over O’Connor among all potential voters – that is voters who have participated in an election since 2010 or have newly registered to vote (a group that represents about 87% of all registered voters in the district). Joe Manchik – the Green Party candidate who earned nearly 4% of the vote when he ran for the seat two years ago – earns just 1% and a relatively large 21% are undecided. Independents (33%) and Republicans (16%) are more likely than Democrats (8%) to say they are undecided.
The race does not look much different using two likely voter models. A historical midterm-like turnout model gives Balderson a 48% to 39% lead, while a model that includes a turnout surge in Democratic areas, mainly in Franklin County, narrows that edge slightly to 46% for Balderson and 39% for O’Connor. The margins in these models are at the edge of the range of uncertainty for the likely voter samples. This means that a slight O’Connor edge is still possible – especially given the large number of undecided voters – but it is significantly more likely that Balderson leads at this point in the race.
Former Ohio-12 incumbent Pat Tiberi, who resigned the seat earlier this year, won the seat by between 27 and 40 points in his last three re-election bids. While the polling margin for the open seat is much smaller than that range, it is in line with recent GOP presidential candidate performances – both Trump in 2016 and Mitt Romney in 2012 won the district by approximately 10 points.
“The fact that there isn’t a lot of difference between the pool of potential voters and the various likely voter models suggests that we aren’t seeing the level of Democratic enthusiasm that has made other special elections more competitive. Democrats seem to be more settled on a candidate than Republicans and O’Connor may have an opening to win over some of those undecided voters. But the real challenge may be motivation rather than persuasion,” said Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute.
Few Ohio-12 voters are paying attention to this race. Only 6% say they have been following the contest very closely and 35% have been following somewhat closely. Furthermore, just 38% say they have a lot of interest in the election. Working against the Democrat in this race is the lack of a partisan enthusiasm gap that has been seen in other special elections over the past year. Similar numbers of Republicans (40%) and Democrats (44%) say they have a lot of interest in this election. Similarly, 45% of Republicans and 45% of Democrats say they have been following the race at least somewhat closely.
O’Connor has a 43% to 33% lead in his home county of Franklin which comprises about a third of the Ohio-12 electorate, but Balderson leads in the rest of the district. White voters without a college degree back Balderson by a 50% to 23% margin whereas those who hold a college degree prefer O’Connor by a much narrower 43% to 39% margin. Black, Asian, and Latino voters back O’Connor by 55% to 25%, but this group makes up only 12% of the potential electorate.
Another sign that this particular election has not caught fire with voters is that neither major party candidate is particularly well known. Balderson gets a 31% favorable and 13% unfavorable rating with 55% having no opinion. O’Connor gets a similar 27% favorable and 11% unfavorable rating with 62% having no opinion. Both candidates are seen similarly as being either in touch (27% for Balderson and 25% for O’Connor) or out of touch (21% for Balderson and 19% for O’Connor) with district residents.
“This race appears to be flying under the radar for most voters. The national environment seems to be helping keep the Republican lead smaller than usual, but may not be increasing voter engagement all that much,” said Murray.
PPP’s polling last month showed a much tighter race between Balderson and O’Connor:
A new poll shows the candidates for Ohio's 12th Congressional District are running neck and neck, a signal that the August showdown for the red-leaning seat could become the next big special election battleground.
New polling conducted by Public Policy Polling for End Citizens United (ECU), a political action committee that backs candidates who push for campaign finance limits, shows Republican state Rep. Troy Balderson ahead of Democrat Danny O'Connor, the Franklin County recorder, by just 2 percentage points, within the survey's margin of error.
Balderson leads with 45 percent of the vote in the new poll, which was provided exclusively to The Hill, while O'Connor followed with 43 percent.
With a margin of error of 3.9 percentage points, O'Connor is well within striking distance in a district that President Trump won by 11 points in 2016 and one that former Rep. Pat Tiberi (R) held with little problems for almost nine terms.
“In a district where Donald Trump won by a large margin, voters are looking for a candidate who will bring change and unrig the system,” Tiffany Muller, ECU's president, said in a statement.
“As voters' frustration with a broken and unresponsive Washington continues to grow, Danny O’Connor’s support for reform helps put him in a position to upset the conventional wisdom in this race.”
ECU has endorsed O'Connor.
The 12th District, which includes the Columbus suburbs and more rural areas in the Zanesville area, is the wealthiest and best-educated district in Ohio. Democrats have already shown an ability to outperform in wealthy and educated areas in previous special elections, a reality that has sparked optimism on the left and concern on the right specifically centered on this district.
While the winner of the Aug. 7 election will only serve out the remainder of Tiberi's term, through the end of the year, an upset here would give Democrats a symbolic jolt ahead of November's midterm elections, where the party is looking to flip the House majority.
Whichever poll you choose to look into, the fact of the matter is this race is competitive and we can pull off this win. Want more proof the GOP is worried about this race? This clown is coming to town on Friday:
Vice President Mike Pence is heading to Ohio on Friday to throw his support behind a Republican candidate in a critical upcoming special election contest.
Pence is slated to host a fundraiser for state Sen. Troy Balderson, who’s competing in an Aug. 7 special election in a district President Donald Trump won by 11 points in 2016, according to a person familiar with the vice president’s plans. The seat was recently vacated by former GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi.
The Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC aligned with GOP House leadership, also started airing TV ads boosting Balderson in the district last week. The group spent $250,000 on the spots, which focused on tax cuts and the opioid crisis. CLF is also opening a field office in the district, aiming to knock on 500,000 doors before Election Day.
And Pence is going to get a special welcome greeting:
The dark cloud of anti-LGBTQ Vice President Mike Pence won’t rain on Pride celebrations this weekend in Columbus.
In fact, when he arrives Friday to address a conservative group with ties to two disgraced Trump administration loyalists, Pence will be greeted with dance music, drag queens and demonstrators outside the Renaissance Columbus Downtown Hotel.
“It all kind of came together through Facebook over the weekend,” said Jay Smith, an organizer of what’s being billed as the Welcome Mike Pence LGBTQ Dance Party. As people shared their thoughts about the insult and irony of a visit by Pence during the city’s annual LGBTQ celebration, you-know-what-we-should-do comments quickly turned into action, Smith said.
“Everyone threw in their part to help. Now we’re getting the word out.”
The party/demonstration is scheduled for Friday from 2 p.m.-5 p.m. outside the Renaissance hotel at 50 N. 3rd St. It’s right near the corner of 3rd and—appropriately—Gay.
Meanwhile, O’Connor is up with his first major ad:
Democrat congressional candidate Danny O’Connor is running his first ad on Columbus broadcast stations starting Tuesday — and it’s clear he’s trying to appeal to the same voters who backed President Donald Trump.
In the 30-second ad, the Franklin County Recorder, who is running against state Rep. Troy Balderson, R-Zanesville, for the seat vacated by U.S. Rep. Pat Tiberi, urges “new leadership on both sides of the aisle,” saying House Speaker Paul Ryan is “not doing anything for working families” but, without naming names, says “we need new leadership on the Democratic side of things too.”
“We need a new generation of leadership,” said O’Connor, 31.
His ad, a nearly six-figure buy that will run for four days and that represents the first ad aired by Democrats for the open 12th District seat, also emphasizes his small-town roots, and acknowledges that the people he grew up with “are forgotten in some ways.” O’Connor is a native of Sidney, Ohio, in western Ohio.
Let’s pull off another Conor Lamb-style victory in Ohio on August 7th. Click here to donate and get involved with O’Connor’s campaign.