Ohio's 'squeaker' election shows there is all to play for in US politics

Ohio's 12th congressional district has been in Republican hands for more than three decades.

The GOP has spent millions there. Donald Trump, who took the district in 2016 by 11 percentage points, recently visited to endorse the candidate.

So the special election battle between Danny O'Connor and Troy Balderson really shouldn't be such a squeaker.

And yet it is. The special election remained too close to call on Wednesday morning, and while Donald Trump claimed victory many US outlets called it a virtual tie.

Democrats have seized on Ohio's 12th as evidence that the Republican house majority is truly up for grabs when the midterms roll around in November.

They point to the high turn-out in urban versus more rural areas, traditionally good news for the left.

They read with delight the ominous warning from the GOP supporting Congressional Leadership Fund super PAC.

"This remains a very tough political environment," it read. "Moving forward, we cannot expect to win tough races when our candidate is being outraised."

Democrats knows they only need a net gain of 23 seats to take back the house. Many more than that are potentially in play.

America's left is energised, mobilised and determined.

Republicans are right to be worried.

But if we've learned anything from Brexit and Trump, it is that confidently predicting the outcome of votes is a bad idea.

The United States has often been characterised as more closely resembling a patchwork of 50 individual countries rather than a single nation.

Each has its own political obsessions, divisions, and issues.

Although cash and energy is a good start, what worked for the Democrats in Ohio is not guaranteed to work elsewhere.

As the saying goes: the plural of anecdote is not data.