Kudos to AlterNet for catching this:
The special election for Ohio's 12th Congressional District takes place Tuesday. And Republicans are increasingly terrified about the prospect of losing yet another reliably conservative seat in a race that is now a tossup.
GOP candidate Troy Balderson, however, also appears to be terrified of tipping his hand about what he would actually do in Congress — starting with whether or not he would back a man mired in a sex abuse scandal for speaker of the House.
In a new video posted by American Bridge, when confronted about Jim Jordan's run for the speakership, Balderson simply ran away.
"You're trying to go to Congress, but you won't promise not to make Jim Jordan speaker of the House?" asked the man, following Balderson as he retreated into a GOP campaign office. "Tell me how that works. How do you make a sexual [abuse] enabler speaker of the House?"
"Can I help you?" asked a woman, getting in the man's face as Balderson retreated to the corner.
"Troy can, he's running for Congress, and he won't answer questions about Jim Jordan," the man persisted. "I just have that one question about Jim Jordan ... I think the answer is because you're committing to make a sexual abuse enabler speaker of the House."
"Troy, why are you hiding from this, man?" he said, as the woman attempted to block the camera. "Don't be a coward, be a man. You're running for one of the most powerful positions, political positions in the United States. And you are cowarding out back there."
Not only is Balderson weak, he’s also an idiot:
Ohio state senator Troy Balderson is running as the Republican in Ohio’s 12th Congressional District special election today. At most points over the past hundred years, this would mean that he was virtually entitled to the seat. But it’s hard to be the Republican candidate in special elections these days—Balderson is locked in a virtual tie with his Democratic opponent, Danny O’Connor, and he didn’t help himself by stepping in a big old pile of shit the day before the election.
The bad moment came when Balderson told a crowd at a rally in Zanesville, OH that “We don’t want someone from Franklin County representing us.”
Franklin County, apart from being where O’Connor is from, is home to Columbus and is the most heavily-populated county in Ohio. As New York magazine notes, it’s also home to roughly a third of the district’s voters. Oops.
This wasn’t just a small jab, either; it was part of a larger rant where Balderson adapted his own version of the “coastal elite” narrative to fit people who live in...Columbus.
O’Connor’s path to victory involves turning out the more Democratic northern suburbs of Columbus, which are located in Franklin County. Balderson needs to boost turnout in the rest of the district, which is more Republican. Per the Cincinnati Enquirer:
In a Monmouth University poll released Wednesday, O’Connor did the best in his home region, holding a 54 percent to 36 percent lead among Franklin County voters. Balderson led 48 percent to 38 percent in the remainder of the district, which includes his hometown of Zanesville.
Rather than offering a message of district-wide unity on the eve of the election, Balderson explained to voters in his home county of Muskingum — where he won 80 percent of the vote in May’s primary — that they were key to him triumphing over the preferred candidates in other areas within the district:
I just want to explain to you why we beat Franklin County, why we beat Delaware County, where everybody thought that’s what was going to happen. We had the odds against us the whole time. Everyone said “you’re too far away Troy, you can’t do it” but guess what it means when you get a community, not just one person or six people, but a community that gets behind you, this is what you get. You get someone that comes out of a nine-way primary, 80 percent of the vote.
Balderson then marveled that a guy from Zanesville had just attended a rally with President Trump. “On Saturday I had the opportunity to stand with not only the president of the United States, but Donald J. Trump, the United States president,” he said. “I kept pinching myself.”
Then he returned to his point about hometown support, saying he needs even bigger turnout in Muskingum on Tuesday, lest it fall into the hands of someone from Franklin County. (Though for the past 17 years, Republicans seemed fine with having former Congressman Pat Tiberi, who was born in Franklin County, represent the district.)
I’ve got to have 85 percent. Eighty-five percent from Muskingum County this time, not 80, but 85. I’m counting on that. My opponent is from Franklin County, and Franklin County has been challenging. We don’t want someone from Franklin County representing us. And it’s really important that we move that needle tomorrow.
… It’s back to that whole community thing again. I could go on and on and on and tell you how important it is to have a community behind you. That’s the only reason I won that primary. And it shocked them. It shocked Franklin and it shocked Delaware County. It shocked all those counties, the bigger populated area ones, knowing that from eastern part of the Muskingum County, the Shaker Heights of Appalachia …
Let’s make this clown pay at the polls. Click here to sign up to Virtual Phone Bank for Danny O’Connor’s campaign.