State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[Vosem]

This is great because Republicans+Morrissey no longer have the trifecta in VA.

Morrissey is an independent, sure, but he's representing a deep-blue seat and usually votes with Democrats.

Anyway, I think the VA-7 result is fine for national Republicans. It represents a small swing right from the 2022 results (Luria won here by 3 points, Rouse by just 1) in a place that's trending Democratic really fast (Clinton+1, Biden+10). By swing from 2020 this suggests a national environment of R+4, and by swing from 2022 it's R+5. (Also, definitely a point of evidence against Democrats usually having a turnout advantage in specials. OTOH, the fair reaction would be that traditional majority parties often have turnout advantages in specials, so maybe this result could coexist with Democrats usually having a turnout advantage in special elections).

It's kind of a bad result for Virginia Republicans, though; as mentioned above this is a seat they had held for decades, and their victory here was one of a few bright spots in 2017. They probably don't have a route to a state Senate majority without this seat, or ones much like it.

[Vosem]

Democrats focused heavily on abortion for this campaign. It's an absolute killer for the GOP, my god.

Biden+10 --> Luria+3 --> D+1?

No, it isn't. And kind of too bad, because the GOP would be a better party if they kicked this one.

This is great because Republicans+Morrissey no longer have the trifecta in VA.

Morrissey is an independent, sure, but he's representing a deep-blue seat and usually votes with Democrats.

Anyway, I think the VA-7 result is fine for national Republicans. It represents a small swing right from the 2022 results (Luria won here by 3 points, Rouse by just 1) in a place that's trending Democratic really fast (Clinton+1, Biden+10). By swing from 2020 this suggests a national environment of R+4, and by swing from 2022 it's R+5. (Also, definitely a point of evidence against Democrats usually having a turnout advantage in specials. OTOH, the fair reaction would be that traditional majority parties often have turnout advantages in specials, so maybe this result could coexist with Democrats usually having a turnout advantage in special elections).

It's kind of a bad result for Virginia Republicans, though; as mentioned above this is a seat they had held for decades, and their victory here was one of a few bright spots in 2017. They probably don't have a route to a state Senate majority without this seat, or ones much like it.

While I agree with your points overall, it should be noted that VA Dems have consistently performed poorly in specials south of the DC area.  Historically, it's been similar to the R turnout machine in TX specials.  There was a special in the Hampton Roads senate district adjacent to this one in 2014 and the Dem only won an Obama +5-10 seat by <10 votes!

I would describe recent Dem results in VA as "good enough to win statewide by 2012-16 margins."  Looks like Biden's 2020 #'s really were a one-off, though.

Yeah, my post points out that one reason this result might not imply as strong an outcome for the GOP as it seems is that this is a historically GOP area, and both parties often overperform in specials in places that are trending against them. You get way fewer new registrations for specials, and relatively new voters are less likely to hear about them, so you get an older electorate -- not just in years-lived, but in years-lived-in-the-constituency.

There are two other special elections going on in VA tonight -- one in a safe D area, and one in a safe R -- how are they doing?

[Vosem]

Democrats focused heavily on abortion for this campaign. It's an absolute killer for the GOP, my god.

Biden+10 --> Luria+3 --> D+1?

More accurately. Youngkin +10 -> D+1 because it's ridiculous to compare high turnout federal elections to low turnout specials especially when the democrat vote is depedant on low turnout black communities.

Youngkin+4, but yes, you could also look at it that way.

https://mobile.twitter.com/Uncrewed/status/1612880200332677133

Lean of the seat/Virginia statewide result/implied lean of the seat relative to Virginia as a whole:
2016-POTUS: D+0/D+5/R+5
2017-Gov: D+8/D+9/R+1
2018-Sen: D+14/D+16/R+2
2019-StSen: R+1/D+13/R+14 (Kiggans is a beast)
2020-POTUS: D+10/D+10/D+0 (slightly left of the state here, by like 0.1 points)
2020-Sen: D+13/D+12/D+1
2021-Gov: R+4/R+3/R+1
2022-House: D+3/D+4/R+1
2023-StSen: D+1/??/??

With the exception of Kiggans' first victory, which is a massive outlier, since 2016 this seat has always been within 0-2 points of the Virginia statewide result. (To be fair to Democrats, more often slightly right than slightly left). I think "D+1" here implies VA as a whole is basically tied, which given that it's a Likely D state is not that good for Democrats.

(But this is one special result, specials are often weird, and we're getting two more of these today.)

[Vosem]

Anyway, results have been finalized (100% counted; these aren't close so I doubt there'll be recounts) in the two House specials:

HD-24:
2023 special: R 63-37
2021 result: R 73-27
2020 POTUS: 67-31
2017 Gov: R 65-34
2016 POTUS: 64-31
Actually an enormous over-performance for Democrats!

HD-35:
2023 special: D 67-33
2021 result: D 69-31
2020 POTUS: D 71-27
2017 Gov: D 70-29
2016 POTUS: D 66-27
A pretty good result for Republicans!

Anyway, the swing from 2021 (note that for SD-7 this is gubernatorial and for the HDs this is House of Assembly, but those are really similar results at ~R+3 statewide) is D+5, D+20 (!), and R+4, for an average swing of D+7, implying something like D+4 statewide...which is actually the exact result from 2022. (In 2022, D+4 statewide in VA implied R+3 nationally. In 2020, it would've meant R+2).

If we do swing from 2020 POTUS instead, we have swings of R+9, D+10, and R+6, for an average swing of R+2. This is actually substantially better for Democrats even though the topline swings are rougher; it implies D+8 statewide in VA, which on 2020-POTUS numbers implies a national environment of D+1, and on 2022-congressional numbers implies D+2.

(Tldr: we had three legislative elections tonight, and they implied a solid R victory in HD-35, a close-and-unsatisfying R victory in SD-7, and then a crazy landslide D victory in HD-24. Pick which narrative you want!)

[Vosem]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1701775747650584762

Horrific performance with the non-Orthodox vote, but still a comfortable Democratic victory on the whole on the strength of uniform Orthodox voting. Probably net bad news for NYC Dems, but I don't think it really means anything outside of NYC.

EDIT: Underrated Hochul Administration accomplishment -- apparently New York actually counts votes quickly now?!

[Vosem]

Dems held onto CT HD 155 by 32 points, an 8-point improvement from Biden '20.

Not sure about the status of the NH races.

EDIT: Reps look likely to flip Coos 6 in NH. Should probably discard the race while talking about special election-national environment correlation because of the obvious Republican turnout advantage.

Notably, the Democratic victory in Connecticut was 54-22, with an independent winning 21%.

Would theoretically be a very impressive victory for the GOP in New Hampshire but obviously it's fully explained by the circumstances.