AP: Balderson wins hotly contested Ohio special election

Republican Troy Balderson has been declared the winner of the special House election for Ohio’s 12th Congressional District, more than two weeks after polls closed.

The Associated Press called the race for Balderson on Friday, who defeated Democrat Danny O’Connor in a race for a three-month term in Washington. Balderson won by a margin of 0.8 percent, the AP reported, defeating O’Connor by 1,680 votes.

{mosads}The Zanesville Republican had already declared victory in the district, but uncounted provisional ballots and close polling numbers left the official results unclear for weeks.

Balderson and O’Connor will face off once again in November, this time for a full two-year term in the House. 

The special election was held to decide who would replace former Rep. Pat Tiberi (R-Ohio), who resigned the seat in January.

Balderson’s victory means that Ohio’s 12th District will stay in Republican hands, at least for now. But the tightness of the race — and the amount of money spent in the contest — is likely to buoy Democratic hopes of making inroads in GOP-held districts in November.

President Trump won the district in 2016 by roughly 11 points, and voters there have elected Republicans to the House consistently for more than three decades.