we have to elect troy. well, president donald trump at a rally on saturday for troy balderson, republican candidate in that special election in ohio s 12th district tonight. the race as we ve been telling you, we are currently saying too close to call. balderson leading democrat danny o connor by less than a percentage point. voters will not learn the final vote till all the absentee and provisional votes are counted. maybe the reason we have such suspense, maybe there s a recount as mandate bid state law. the president has already declared victory. earlier tonight he tweeted when i decided to go to ohio for troy badder son, he was down 64-36. that was not good. after my speech on saturday night, there was a big turn for the better. he wins a great victory during a tough type of the year for voting. he will win big in november followed by another tweeting congratulations to troy badder son on a great win in ohio.
say maybe colyer despite being behind but a very close race. joining me now jason johnson, from the root.com and msbc contributor. john podder ritz and jason. the president will try to find a way to declare victory with any of these. he s doing it in ohio tonight. maybe the republican party will be happy with that one. in can is if kobach were to win this thing, that is something the republican establishment doesn t want to see. the president is still the biggest loudest voice for the republican party. he can claim victories tonight and he has proven he can be successful in moving people in primaries. apparently trumpism only works for donald trump. people who push that kind of attitude, that kind of behavior, kobach with all the controversies in his background and the corruption and everything else like that, being
we have been focusing all night on a special election in the 12th district in ohio. believe it or not, there s a lot more when it comes to elections tonight. a bunch of other big races happening around the country including michigan where the democratic state senate leader gretchen whitmer has won the democratic nomination for governor in that state. this according to associated press. there s been a little bit of chaos in the vote counting out there for the secretary of state site. those are the numbers you see up on the screen showing you a low apartment in. whitmer the favorite of the establishment of the party. you re seeing in the a.p. count winning with 51% of the vote. she defeats apparently former top detroit health official abdul he will syed. he was backed by both bernie sanders and alexandria ocasio-cortez. they campaigned on his behalf ahead of this race. joining us is democratic congressman eric swalwell of california.
other rays around the country. that is the lay of the land there. garrett haake it on the ground at o connor headquarters wes terville, ohio. it looks quiet behind you. what was it like to be out there tonight? i m the last man standing. they ve turned off the lights. everybody has gone home. a few hours ago, this was a pretty bumping party. democrats really felt like they had a shot here tonight. it the last 48 hours of this race, everything seemed to be breaking their way. the republican candidate stumbled into a gaffe about franklin county the night before the election started. their candidate had been all over the place in national and local media. they felt like they were fighting out the last few days of this campaign on democratic issue turf talking about health care, they were talking about protecting it social security. that s one of the reasons that democrats nationally by the way like what they see here today.