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Gretchen Whitmer Wins Democratic Nomination for Michigan Governor Ohio Special Election for Congress Is Too Close to Call
(about 1 hour later)
Gretchen Whitmer, a former Democratic leader in the Michigan State Senate, claimed her party’s nomination for governor on Tuesday, defeating two insurgent rivals and setting up a crucial test for Midwestern Democrats and organized labor in November. WESTERVILLE, Ohio — Republicans spent millions of dollars on scorching television ads, pried a reluctant endorsement from Ohio’s moderate governor, used Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi as a foil and enlisted President Trump in a last-minute turnaround effort in a special election for Congress in Ohio.
Ms. Whitmer will face Bill Schuette, the state attorney general and the longtime front-runner on the Republican side, in the general election. Republicans have dominated Michigan for most of the last decade and President Trump carried the state narrowly in 2016. The governorship is a vital prize for Democrats seeking a comeback there. And after all that, in a conservative-leaning district outside Columbus, the Republican candidate clung to the narrowest of leads on Tuesday night.
The most closely watched contest of the night, however, was next door in Ohio, where a solitary special election for a conservative-leaning House seat outside Columbus became in recent weeks a momentous test of wills between the two national parties. The Republican, Troy Balderson, a state senator who ran a plodding campaign, led his Democratic challenger, Danny O’Connor, by less than 1 percentage point with all precincts reporting. But an unknown number of provisional ballots are yet to be counted and Ohio law provides for an automatic recount if the two candidates are ultimately separated by less than half a percentage point.
By 10 p.m. Tuesday, with most of the votes counted, the Republican candidate, State Senator Troy Balderson, and the Democrat, Danny O’Connor, were running almost even. National Republicans declared victory before midnight, but it could be days or weeks before there is a conclusive result in the race. And regardless of the outcome, Mr. Balderson and Mr. O’Connor will face each other again in three months, in the regularly scheduled November election.
Voters in Ohio’s 12th District, a largely suburban seat that has been loyally Republican for decades, were choosing a replacement for Pat Tiberi, a former lawmaker who resigned abruptly to join the private sector. But already, Republicans’ brush with catastrophe in Ohio has heightened the party’s gloomy mood, highlighting the massive political mobilization among Democrats and the comparative demoralization of the Republican base. The district that Mr. Balderson may have barely won voted for President Trump by 11 points less than two years ago, and routinely elected Republicans to Congress by landslide margins before that.
National Republicans have spent millions there and Mr. Trump visited the district over the weekend in an effort to pull Mr. Balderson to victory against Mr. O’Connor, a 31-year-old local official in Franklin County, the most Democratic-leaning part of the district. On the Democratic side, the Ohio vote is likely to reignite debate about Ms. Pelosi’s future as party leader, and whether her declared intention to try to become House speaker again could cost Democrats the chance to win power in November.
Mr. Balderson’s struggles in the race have been a vivid study in the tribulations of Republican congressional candidates under Mr. Trump, and the race is seen as a test of whether a powerful onslaught from national Republican groups can keep a once-reliably red district in line. Mr. Trump claimed credit for Mr. Balderson’s apparent survival, pointing out that the former auto dealer trailed badly in early voting and fared better on Election Day. Mr. Trump visited the district on Saturday. “After my speech on Saturday night, there was a big turn for the better,” he boasted on Twitter.
In Kansas, Republicans were also hurtling to the end of a bruising primary for governor: Jeff Colyer, the Republican incumbent, appears at dire risk of losing the G.O.P. nomination to Kris Kobach, a hard-right state official whom Mr. Trump endorsed on Monday. Republican leaders in the state worry that Mr. Kobach, who is best known for supporting voting restrictions and strenuously opposing immigration, could put the office at risk in the general election. Even as Mr. O’Connor appeared to fall short, however, he significantly improved upon Hillary Clinton’s performance in the district’s suburban precincts and overwhelmed Mr. Balderson in the sort of high-income enclaves Republicans must perform better in to hold their 23-seat majority.
There were also important congressional primaries across the map, including in a half-dozen districts in Kansas, Michigan and Washington State that are expected to be intensely contested in November. In the race for a United States Senate seat in Michigan, John James, a businessman and Army veteran who is African-American, won the Republican nomination to face the Democratic incumbent, Debbie Stabenow. Mr. O’Connor refused to concede on Tuesday night. Taking the stage to Tom Petty’s “I Won’t Back Down” just after 10:50 p.m., as the final precincts were reporting, Mr. O’Connor said the two candidates were “in a tied ballgame.” He then repurposed his speech into an appeal for the general election, when he and Mr. Balderson will face off again.
And in Missouri, Republicans nominated Josh Hawley, the state attorney general, as their challenger against Senator Claire McCaskill, a vulnerable Democrat. Mr. Hawley dispensed with a handful of gadfly primary opponents; he has the muscular backing of the national G.O.P. establishment. “We’re not stopping now,” Mr. O’Connor said. “We must keep fighting through November.”
In voting elsewhere Tuesday, Gretchen Whitmer, a former Democratic leader in the Michigan State Senate, claimed her party’s nomination for governor, setting up a crucial test for Midwestern Democrats and organized labor in November. Ms. Whitmer will face Bill Schuette, the state attorney general. Republicans have dominated Michigan for most of the last decade and President Trump carried the state narrowly in 2016. The governorship is a vital prize for Democrats seeking a comeback there.
In the Senate race in Michigan, John James, an African-American Republican who also had Mr. Trump’s backing, won the nomination to challenge the Democratic incumbent, Debbie Stabenow. In Missouri, Josh Hawley, the Republican state attorney general, will face off against Senator Claire McCaskill, a vulnerable Democrat.
And in Kansas, Republicans were hurtling to the end of a bruising primary for governor: Jeff Colyer, the Republican incumbent, appeared at risk of losing the G.O.P. nomination to Kris Kobach, a hard-right state official whom Mr. Trump endorsed on Monday. Republican leaders in the state worry that Mr. Kobach, who is best known for supporting voting restrictions and strenuously opposing immigration, could put the office at risk in the general election.