Signs and Omens? - Part 3

The tight race between Democrat Danny O'Connor and Republican Troy Balderson just got tighter.

Election officials in Franklin County found 588 previously uncounted votes in a Columbus suburb. The result: O'Connor had a net gain of 190 votes, bringing the race's margin down to 1,564.

"The votes from a portion of one voting location had not been processed into the tabulation system," according to a Franklin County Board of Elections news release.

  USA Today

I wonder how many others there might be.

Balderson declared victory Tuesday night in the closely watched congressional district race in central Ohio. But O'Connor says he's waiting for all votes to be counted.

That includes 3,435 provisional ballots and 5,048 absentee ballots, which will be tabulated by Aug. 24.

Balderson is backed by President Donald Trump and Ohio Gov. John Kasich. The race was surprisingly close for a district that Trump won by 11 percentage points in 2016 and Republicans have held for decades.

If the final results show a margin of 0.5 percent or less, state election officials will hold an automatic recount.

Republican strategist Evan Siegfried said Wednesday that the results from Ohio's special election has him "terrified" about the GOP's prospects in this year's midterms.

"This is a district that President Trump won by 11 points. No Democrat has been elected to this House seat since 1980," Siegfried said on "MSNBC Live." "We are having a very big problem."

  The Hill

The whole world is having a very big problem, and the biggest chunk of it sits in the White House.

Despite the warnings, Trump declared victory on Tuesday as Balderson held a 50.2 percent to 49.3 percent lead over O'Connor with 100 percent of the precincts reporting. But more than 3,300 provisional ballots were yet to be counted, leaving the outcome still unknown.

"I think Republicans are really trying to shine something that isn’t good," Siegfried said.

They've been doing that for decades.

Alarmed by the tight race for a congressional seat in Ohio, Republicans are steeling for a 90-day campaign of trench warfare as they fight to keep control of the House, pinning their hopes on well-funded outside groups and a slashing negative message about Democrats.

Voting across the Midwest and West laid bare the party’s precarious situation on Wednesday: Ohio’s special election exposed deep vulnerabilities in the historically conservative suburbs of Columbus, and the Republican candidate there held a slim lead over his Democratic challenger.

In Kansas, a nomination fight for governor also remained too close to call the day after the primary, with a hard-right candidate threatening to topple the state’s Republican incumbent and splinter the party down ballot.

And in primaries from suburban Detroit to Seattle, Democrats selected hard-charging candidates in districts long held by the Republican Party.

[...]

[S]enior party strategists have concluded that over a dozen districts held by Republicans may already be unwinnable, most in metropolitan areas where President Trump has alienated moderates and stirred volcanic resistance on the left.

[...]

“There’s a real likelihood that they not only win the House, but they win it by 10 or 12 more seats than they need,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, voicing publicly what many Republican officials have begun to acknowledge privately this summer.

Mr. Graham said a Democratic takeover was no sure thing, noting that “in the era of Trump, things can change in 24 hours, for good or bad.”

  NYT

Especially with hackable voting machines, eh?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.