U.S. President Donald Trump has a very high opinion of himself. In his world, he gets to decide what’s true and what’s not — and he offers a magic touch to GOP Congressional candidates too, apparently.
The United States woke up Wednesday to two candidates duking it out for an Ohio Congressional seat in a special election so close to each other that the race remained uncalled by the Associated Press. To Trump, though, that’s an overwhelming victory that everyone should pat him on the back for.
He tweeted:
‘As long as I campaign and/or support Senate and House candidates (within reason), they will win! I LOVE the people, & they certainly seem to like the job I’m doing. If I find the time, in between China, Iran, the Economy and much more, which I must, we will have a giant Red Wave!’
He followed that up with another later tweet that simply proclaimed:
‘RED WAVE!’
Trump’s concept of an oncoming “red wave” stems from Democrats pointing to the seemingly on the way “blue wave.” Democrats have long enjoyed a significant lead in generic Congressional ballot polling heading into the midterms, while Republicans have, in the array of special elections that have so far taken place under Trump, failed to maintain massive, overwhelming leads, even in counties that Trump won by a significant margin.
Still, Trump hold fasts to the idea that a “red wave” is coming, pointing to GOP victories in special elections as evidence, even where those “victories” rest on margins far below the comfortable level.
Before the above quoted posts, he proclaimed on Twitter:
‘The Republicans have now won 8 out of 9 House Seats, yet if you listen to the Fake News Media you would think we are being clobbered. Why can’t they play it straight, so unfair to the Republican Party and in particular, your favorite President!’
Yes, it’s true that out of eight special elections held since he took office to fill U.S. House seats, Republicans have won.
That’s not all there is to the story, though.
In Ohio’s 12th Congressional district, which is where Trump-backed candidate Troy Balderson went up against Democrat Danny O’Connor on Tuesday, the president won in the 2016 election by an 11 percent margin. Balderson, though, only managed to squeak by with a leading margin of around 1,750 votes, which translates to a 0.9 percent lead.
The Associated Press initially wouldn’t even call the race, citing the possibility of a recount.
That doesn’t bode well for Trump’s party, which will be battling this fall to keep Democrats from picking up the two dozen or so seats needed to take control of the U.S. House. Even Balderson will be up for re-election again soon — he’s just filling in because of the resignation of Republican Patrick Tiberi, who now leads a business policy group in Ohio.
Basically, Balderson only gets to hold onto his victory for the time being because of random chance, not because of some overwhelming surge of Republican support. It could have easily gone the other way, as it did for Democrat Conor Lamb running recently in a district Trump won by a huge margin in 2016. That’s exactly what the president and his allies are afraid of.
Check out Twitter’s response to Trump below.
Featured Image via YouTube screenshot
