(CNN) House Republicans are currently holding onto the idea that they can hold their majority by the thinnest of threads.

A special election on Tuesday in Ohio may cut through that plan, setting off a sort of electoral panic with less than 100 days left before the midterm vote.

The race in question is in Ohio's 12th District. The resignation of Republican Rep. Pat Tiberi caused the special election. Both sides got the candidates they wanted: State Sen. Troy Balderson for Republicans and Franklin County Recorder Danny O'Connor for Democrats.

That's where -- in a normal election cycle with a national landscape generally even between the two parties -- the story would end. After all, this Columbus-area seat has been represented by a Republican for more than three decades straight. In the last round of redistricting, the seat was made more Republican to accommodate Tiberi, a close ally of then-Speaker John Boehner. Following that redraw, Tiberi won with 64%, 68% and 67% in his last three re-election races. Mitt Romney won the district over President Barack Obama by 10 points in 2012 while Donald Trump carried it by 11 in 2016.

But this is not a normal election cycle. Trump's unpopularity coupled with historic trends that work against the party in power in the midterms and a hugely energized Democratic base has turned the Ohio special into a dead heat, according to Trump's unpopularity coupled with historic trends that work against the party in power in the midterms and a hugely energized Democratic base has turned the Ohio special into a dead heat, according to new polling from Monmouth University

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