Tuesday was a night of extremes. In primaries and special elections in five states — Ohio, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri and Washington — socialist-leaning Democrats challenged their party’s establishment, with mixed results, while President Trump boosted GOP challengers far on the right, with mixed results.
And, of course, the big story is in Ohio. Republican Troy Balderson held a narrow lead in a special congressional election that, on paper, Republicans should have won by miles.
Here are the night’s winners and losers.
House Democrats (their morale at least): Almost any way you slice the numbers, Ohio’s 12th Congressional District in the northern Columbus suburbs wasn’t supposed to be competitive for Democrats. And yet their candidate, Danny O’Connor, still has Republicans biting their nails in this special election. With thousands of provisional ballots left to be counted, Balderson is ahead, but O’Connor has not conceded.
