Although Republican Troy Balderson leads narrowly, Tuesday’s as-yet-uncalled special election in Ohio still gives Republicans another reason to be worried about November’s midterm elections. After all, Ohio’s 12th Congressional District had been held by Republicans since Ronald Reagan’s first term and Donald Trump won it by 11 points in 2016. This was not supposed to be close, so despite Trump's characteristic bragging, alarm bells are ringing in Republicanland.
Republican groups are getting their check books ready, but since Republicans outspent Democrats dramatically in OH-12, it’s clear that money has its limits. As the head of one Republican Super PAC told the Washington Post, “This remains a very tough political environment.” And Trump isn’t making it any easier, by his very existence or by his continuing Trumpy behavior:
White House officials have been giving Trump weekly or biweekly updates on races and showing him polling and pictures of candidates along with the staff or party leadership recommendation of what to do in each contest, according to the people briefed on the discussions.
But Trump doesn’t always listen to advisers and has been driving the strategy himself, informally polling his inner circle about how far he might go on trade policy and a possible government shutdown over immigration policy without crippling the GOP field, according to Republicans involved in the discussions.
Division and anger remain Trump’s only strategies, and while there are places where that will work, there are many where it will hurt his party. That gave Washington’s Democratic governor an opening to troll a little bit:
Indeed! Washington Republicans are in much more danger than we’d realized! Please, turn out to help them, Donald.