12th Congressional District: Trump takes credit

PDarrel Rowland

resident Donald Trump took credit for Republican Troy Balderson’s apparent victory in the special 12th Congressional District election this past week. With a strong GOP showing Tuesday, Trump could never be proved wrong by claiming that his visit to southern Delaware County before the election sparked the turnout three days later that appears to have put Balderson over the top.

But his tweet afterward is causing some head-scratching: “When I decided to go to Ohio for Troy Balderson, he was down in early voting 64 to 36. That was not good. After my speech on Saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. Now Troy wins a great victory during a very tough time of the year for voting.”

Actually, Balderson still lost the early vote by 63 percent to 36 percent to Democrat Danny O’Connor per the Election Night tabulation; there was no earlier vote count. Maybe there was a “big turn for the better,” but both GOP and independent polls put the race at a toss-up before Trump’s visit, and that didn’t change.

Independents flow to O’Connor

Of course, both Democrats and Republicans engaged in hopelessly broad speculation about The Great Meaning of the central Ohio congressional contest, the last before the November mid-terms.

But election stats junkie Mike Dawson might have uncovered the most startling number: O’Connor won unaffiliated (“independent”) early voters in Republican Delaware County by as much as 95 percent to 5 percent over Balderson.

With unaffiliated voters likely making up a much larger share of the November electorate, those numbers provide yet another danger sign for the GOP effort to hold onto the predominantly Republican district.

Dawson called it “the most stunning election statistic I’ve seen in 30 years of doing this.”

Trump falsely blames media

Trump was nowhere near the truth in another part of his speech in Delaware County:

“And I’ll tell you what, we’re going to have a tremendous victory for Troy, Troy Balderson. And he’s the one I wanted to win. They had this false report that I was supporting somebody else, and they were right. It was fake news, you’re right, so. And I was supporting somebody else, Steve Stivers, but he’s in a totally different district. Did they apologize? Did you apologize for them...?” he asked, gesturing to where the news media were assembled as the crowd at Olentangy Orange High School broke into a loud chant of “CNN sucks.”

The source of the false report? Donald Trump’s own tweet two days earlier where he mixed up Stivers, the incumbent congressman in an adjoining district, and Balderson. No recusal for Husted

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach recused himself this past week from a GOP gubernatorial primary recount in which he is a candidate. Ohio Secretary of State Jon Husted was not a candidate in Tuesday’s election, but the guy he campaigned for, Balderson, is — and could be involved in a recount if O’Connor can shave a few votes off the Zanesville state senator’s 0.8 point election night margin. A difference of 0.5 points or less requires an automatic recount under Ohio law.

Husted sees no need to step aside, because his office would not be involved in any recount other than to order one if the state minimum is met, said Communications Director Matt McClellan.

“Our office really has no role in this. It all happens at the county level,” McClellan said.

As the largest county in the district, Franklin County will tote up the numbers from the other areas. The official count can begin as soon as next Sunday and must be done by Aug. 24.