2 races too close to call
After elections in 5 states, contests in Ohio, Kansas still up in air.
WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Two high-stakes elections remained too close to call Wednesday. Trump claimed victory in one nevertheless and proclaimed himself “5 for 5” in Tuesday’s elections.
In battleground Ohio, the congressional contest could be headed to a recount.
But Democrats could celebrate their strong showing in the district that has been strongly Republican for decades.
“We’re not stopping now,” Democrat Danny O’Connor told cheering supporters Tuesday night. Whoever is eventually declared the winner in the special election will take office immediately but only until the end of the year. The two men will face off again in November for the full 2019-20 term.
Trump declared “a great victory” for Republican Troy Balderson, tweeting Wednesday, “As long as I campaign and/or support Senate and House candidates (within reason), they will win!”
He claimed to have helped five GOP candidates win, including Bill Schuette for Michigan governor, John James for Michigan Senate and Josh Hawley for Missouri Senate. “5 for 5!” Trump tweeted.
Though, as in Ohio, the Kansas primary for governor was too close to call.
With election officials halting the vote count Wednesday morning, Secretary of State Kris Kobach led incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer by fewer than 200 votes. It could be several days before all absentee votes are counted.
The results of the day’s races in five states were helping determine the political landscape — and Trump’s standing within his own party — as the GOP defends its House and Senate majorities this fall.
If Balderson holds on in Ohio, Republicans will have won eight of nine special House elections since 2016, most in Republican-leaning districts.
In Kansas, Republicans were fighting among themselves in an unusual battle for governor in which the president sided with the incumbent’s challenger.
A new state law allows ballots postmarked as of Tuesday to be counted, as long as they arrive within three days of election day.
Kobach received a late endorsement from Trump. Colyer received the endorsement of the National Rifle Association and had the backing of Kansas political legend Bob Dole.
In Kansas’ 3rd Congressional District, Sharice Davids became the state’s first American Indian and gay nominee for Congress.
The 38-year-old attorney and activist prevailed in a close six-candidate Democratic primary and will face four-term Republican Rep. Kevin Yoder.
Davids edged labor lawyer Brent Welder, who received the endorsements and a June campaign visit from Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders and New York House candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
Democrats are targeting the district, which includes the state’s metropolitan Kansas City area. Hillary Clinton narrowly won it in the 2016 presidential race.
In Ohio, there were at least 3,367 provisional ballots left to be reviewed. That’s enough for O’Connor to potentially pick up enough to force a recount.
The winner takes the seat previously held by Pat Tiberi, a nine-term incumbent who resigned to take a job with an Ohio business group.
In a special election season that featured nearly a dozen congressional contests, Democrats claimed just a handful of wins, but they may have cause for optimism this fall. In virtually every special election test dating back to the spring of 2017, Democratic candidates performed significantly better than their party had in those same places two years earlier.
Trump won Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, for example, by more than 11 points in 2016; on Tuesday night, Balderson and O’Connor were separated by less than 1 point.
Despite the deadlocked race, the details of the Ohio returns suggest considerably higher Democratic enthusiasm less than 100 days before the midterms.
O’Connor’s total of nearly 100,000 votes far exceeded what the Republican Tiberi’s Democratic opponent got in 2014. Balderson’s total — just more than 101,500 votes — was barely two-thirds of Tiberi’s 2014 mark of about 150,000.
“Over the next three months, I’m going to do everything I can to keep America great again, so that when we come back here in November — get ready, we gotta come back here in November — I have earned your vote for a second time,” Balderson told supporters.
In Michigan, former state Rep. Rashida Tlaib is poised to become the first Muslim woman in Congress. She won the Democratic nomination to run unopposed in November.
The field was set in two Senate contests.
In Missouri, state Attorney General Josh Hawley won the GOP nod while Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill won her party’s nomination.
And in Michigan, Democratic Sen. Debbie Stabenow will take John James, who won the GOP nomination. James, a military veteran and business executive, would join Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina as the chamber’s only black Republicans.
Trump tweeted that James is “a potential Republican star.”