Tuesday night at the races
by Tom Sullivan
Tuesday night's Ohio 12 special election ended in a cliffhanger. The historically Republican district Donald Trump carried by 11 points was not supposed to be competitive for Democrats. Yet at the end of the night, Republican state Sen. Troy Balderson led Democrat Franklin County Recorder Danny O’Connor by barely half a percentage point with absentee and provisional ballots yet to be counted (in 10 days) more than twice the margin between them. The remaining uncounted ballots may be enough to trigger a recount, but for now it seems Democrats did not upset in OH-12. Whichever candidate wins, both will face off again on November 6.
The Washington Post's takeaway?
1. Voters in Republican-leaning suburban districts are souring on Trump.Voter fraud hunter and Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is in a dead heat with incumbent Gov. Jeff Colyer in the Kansas Republican primary for governor. The Washington Post reports that with 94.8 percent of the precincts reporting, at 6 a.m. Colyer has 120,662 votes to Kobach’s 121,203.
2. Largely because of that, a wave that will sweep Republicans out of power appears to be building.
In suburban House districts across the Midwest, left-wing candidates lost to Democrats backed by party leaders, abortion rights groups and labor unions.Party centrists crowed at the defeat of insurgent progressives from the Democrats' left:
And in St. Louis, where party giant-slayer Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez traveled to help another young insurgent candidate topple an incumbent, Rep. William Lacy Clay (D-Mo.) cruised to an easy primary win over challenger Cori Bush.
“This is a fantastic night for centrist Democrats,” said Jim Kessler, senior vice president for policy at the center-left Third Way think tank. “We nominated the right candidates who can win House seats and governor’s mansions for the Democratic Party. There’s a quiet enthusiasm in the middle. There’s a quiet voice that people are not hearing in the media, but it’s loud at the ballot box.”But perhaps too much too soon for Third Way.
Missouri’s law against compulsory union fees was defeated Tuesday by a 2-to-1 margin, nearly a year after the measure adopted by the state’s Republican governor and Legislature had been scheduled to take effect. It was put hold after unions successfully petitioned to force a public referendum.Missouri's referendum was the first time voters had the opportunity to weigh in directly on union fees since the Supreme Court ruled in June public-sector unions could not collect fees from non-members benefited by union contracts. The Missouri measure would have extended that to all private employers in the state.
The election results effectively vetoed the Missouri measure and halted a string of stinging losses for organized labor. Since 2012, five other once historically strong union states had adopted right-to-work laws as Republicans gained strength in state capitols, raising the total to 27 states with such laws.