What we can learn from 12th District race
Although it’s not official, yet, Zanesville Republican Troy Balderson has won a seat in the U.S. House for the next four-plus months representing the Columbus region’s 12th District. And Columbus Democrat Danny O’Connor, Franklin County’s recorder, lost to Balderson.
Balderson, a state senator, drew about 50.15 percent of the 12th District’s vote. But in 2016, Balderson’s self-appointed cheerleader, Donald Trump, drew 53.2 percent of the district’s vote;. Trump led Hillary Clinton by 11.3 percentage points. But Balderson led Democrat O’Connor by 0.9 percent (ninetenths of 1 percent).
That is, to the extent that Balderson was a Trump proxy in the heavily Republican district, the president may be in trouble in Ohio. If everything in America is as fabulous as the president’s fans claim, Balderson should have done at least as well Tuesday as Trump did in 2016.
No, that doesn’t mean Trump can’t win a second term. In the last 100 years, voters have denied only Herbert Hoover, Jimmy Carter and George H.W. Bush second terms. So there’s that. (Gerald Ford was never elected vice president or president, but when Carter unseated Ford in 1976, the GOP’s Ford carried every county now in Balderson’s 12th District.)
There’ll be a Balderson-O’Connor rematch in November for a full, twoyear U.S. House term. Tuesday’s election was for the remainder of ex-Rep. Patrick Tiberi’s term. This fall’s Balderson-O’Connor rematch should be as robust as the summer campaign. Tiberi, a Genoa Township Republican, resigned from Congress on Jan. 15 to become president of the Ohio Business Roundtable.
The 12th District is composed of Delaware, Licking (Newark) and Morrow (Mount Gilead) counties, and parts of Franklin, Marion, Muskingum (Zanesville) and Richland (Mansfield) counties. Historically, Delaware County is about as Republican as an Ohio county can get. As for Licking, from 1961 to mid-1982, nationally known Republican conservative John M. Ashbrook, of Johnstown, represented it in Congress. In 1972, Ashbrook challenged the GOP’s re-nomination of President Richard M. Nixon. Ashbrook charged Nixon’s administration had “nearly decapitated American conservatism,” the New York Times later reported. Ashbrook also opposed Nixon’s reach-out to China’s communist dictatorship. And now Donald Trump is playing trade-and-tariff poker with China.
Meanwhile, down in Missouri
An out of state tally likely of interest to Ohioans was Tuesday’s overwhelming decision by Missouri voters to kill a Right to Work law the GOP-run Missouri General Assembly had passed and then-Gov. Eric Greitens signed. (Greitens, a Republican, resigned in May in the wake of a sex scandal.)
Missouri voters successfully petitioned to put the Right to Work law on the statewide ballot so Missourians could vote Right to Work up or down. On Tuesday, of the 1.4 million Missourians voting on the Right to Work issue, 67.5 percent voted “no.” The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that only 15 of Missouri’s 114 counties voted “yes” on Right to Work. The newspaper’s analysis projected that as many as 331,000 Missouri Republicans “bolted from their party” to vote “no” on Right to Work (Proposition A).
Now pending in Ohio’s House is a proposed Right to Work amendment to the Ohio Constitution, introduced by Republican Reps. John Becker, of suburban Cincinnati, and Craig Riedel, of Defiance. Among the measure’s co-sponsors: Republican Reps. Niraj Antani, of Miamisburg; Bill Dean, of Xenia; Nino Vitale, of Urbana; and Paul Zeltwanger, of Mason.
To reach the ballot, the Becker-Riedel plan would have to win at least 60 “yes” votes in the 99-member Ohio House; and 20 in the 33-member state Senate. But while Republicans rule the Ohio General Assembly, its GOP leaders seemingly have no interest in passing Right to Work here.
There’ll be a Balderson-O’Connor rematch in November for a full, twoyear U.S. House term. Tuesday’s election was for the remainder of ex-Rep. Patrick Tiberi’s term.