OH-12 Special Election: Balderson vs. O’Connor on August 7

[Progressive Pessimist]

I get why Democrats in more conservative territory are disavowing Pelosi, but it kind of annoys me that Republicans are allowed to get away with marching in lockstep behind Ryan/McConnell no matter how Democratic their district/state is, even though some polls show them as even more unpopular than Pelosi. It just strikes me as buying into and surrendering against a GOP narrative, when you could instead use their own tactics against them.

In fact, the only time you see Republicans disavowing Ryan/McConnell is in primaries because they're deemed as Soros-funded globalist cocaine snorting RINOs, lol.

That pisses me off too, but it's a testament to how Republicans are able to hammer their narratives into the skulls of ordinary gullible Americans.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Dems don't need this one to control the House anyways

The Democrats only really need it to avoid Trump bragging and "Democrats in disarray" news cycles.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Trump has colluded with the enemy, but voting machines werent hacked. OH-12 is the perfect state to test if Dems are gonna expand that majority

Not really. There are plenty of better pickups in November. This race, along with prior House special elections, are really only important to gauge what kind of pickups the Democrats will gain as well as to prevent Trump bragging and media spin about Democrats' prospects of taking back the House being doomed.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Some group affiliated with the Balderson campaign is texting Democrats and telling them that theor polling location has changed.

Typical GOP-using unethical, dirty, deplorable tactics.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Lol

https://www.twitter.com/_owendaugherty/status/1025938307803500544

Just like that "Blacks for Trump" guy, most of his rallies are just the same cultists who travel across the country to support him.

That guy in particular holds up a sign about some website called Gods2.com or something which traffics in antisemitic conspiracy theories. They are not representative of black people as a whole, or even most black Republicans, honestly. He really does just attract the worst kinds of people that follow him around the country to lap up whatever bile he is extruding. It's like the Grateful Dead and their "Deadheads," but infinitely worse!

[Progressive Pessimist]

Whether O'Connor wins or not, the fact it's a photo-finish in a district that should be an easy win for the republicans spells big trouble for them.

Morris's take:

https://twitter.com/gelliottmorris/status/1026318554671603718

It really would be but the Trump and Republican bragging (even though they have no right to brag with this somewhat pointless race being as close it might be) will be insufferable. Like Massguy said:

B-b-but the Red Wave!

If Republicans hold this ditrict: "Where's your "blue wave" libtards? HA HA HA HA"

The media will probably join in with the usual "WHERE IS THEIR MESSAGE?!" schtick.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Guys I highly recommend staying away as much as possible from the predictit comment section for Ohio 12th special election by party, it is completely toxic.

Nearly every internet comments section is toxic.

[Progressive Pessimist]

This is my first time posting in this thread after all the election day votes were counted. I don't think O'Connor is going to be able to pull ahead from the absentee and provisional ballots. He has a better case to make in not conceding than Saccone or Moore did since those outstanding votes tend to favor Democrats. But it's still a real stretch.

As far as I'm concerned Balderson won in an absolutely pathetic way. I predicted that this race would have Balderson winning by 5, and damn was I off with that! I really thought that the election day vote would overwhelm whatever early vote lead O'Connor had. O'Connor really has nothing to be ashamed about though, and neither does the Democratic Party as a whole, in spite of the conservative gloating that we have seen. It just goes to show how out of touch they are. You wouldn't see Democrats gloating if Jim Himes' district (D+7 in comparison to OH-12 being R+7) was won by another Democrat by less than 1%. If you asked me a month ago, hell, even a week ago, I never would have expected the Republican to win like this, and Balderson was a better candidate than Saccone and especially Moore. This seat should not have been competitive and is pretty much assurance that the wave is coming. Steve Chabot should be wetting his pants right about now. Ohio truly may not be a lost cause for the Democratic Party. If Cordray wins the Governorship and can somehow end the Ohio GOP's gerrymandering of the districts, it could make the subsequent congressional elections even better for the Democrats. I do worry that the Ohio legislature could pull some shenanigans to make early voting more difficult though, now that they have seen how much it benefited O'Connor. It's right up their alley to do that. Or maybe I'm just a cynic.

There really wasn't as much at stake here for the Democrats than for the Republicans. We lost this one but it ultimately doesn't matter. Balderson will hold the district for about three months and then have to face O'Connor again. If O'Connor can replicate what he accomplished here and improve even just marginally (while taking higher turnout for both parties into account) he could potentially usurp Balderson after all. O'Connor has name recognition now and Balderson is going to be a fairly weak incumbent. It could still go either way in November, but I would now consider it a tossup.

Also, I learned on election night by watching the news that Pat Tiberi's name is pronounced "tea berry." I always thought it was "tie berry. Well either way, hopefully Balderson at least will be a better representative than he was.

[Progressive Pessimist]

Well this is getting really anticlimactic.

It was always going to be that way, unfortunately.