Special Election megathread (5/21: CA-20)

[windjammer]

I think Sabato IS waiting for these elections to make the decision to change its ratings or not

[windjammer]

Looking at cynic's estimation on twitter, the dem candidate is going to end up at 39%. If that is true I think Palin is going to win this.

[windjammer]

Btw,
I don't know where to post this but.

It is true that according to the polls inflation is more important than abortion for voters.

I have been Reading that for some twitter pundits and for some posters, the abortion issue is going to fade away. I absolutely don't believe so as to me this is wishful thinking from pro life people. People are so passionate about this issue so if you really think that they are going to forget about it "with Time" you're deadly wrong. Clearly an unpopular ruling that is impacting their lives and additionnally the evangelical base of the GOP is going to constantly push to ban abortion even in case of rape.

[windjammer]

I'm optimistic for the NY special election. I believe he Can win. Suburbans are mobilized

[windjammer]

I Guess I'm going to be wrong but I still think Ryan is going to win this

[windjammer]

I Guess I'm going to be wrong but I still think Ryan is going to win this

Hehehehehe

[windjammer]

It should probably give some pause that the formula here for Dem overperformance is (relatively) great turnout in Dem counties overwhelming weaker margins elsewhere. Would be pretty shocking to have similar turnout differential come November.

This is crucial. Some on here are going to be very disappointed when national turnout in November reaches 110-120m voters.

Well this means that 2010 and 2014 won't happen again because democrats aren't forgetting to vote lol

[windjammer]

It should probably give some pause that the formula here for Dem overperformance is (relatively) great turnout in Dem counties overwhelming weaker margins elsewhere. Would be pretty shocking to have similar turnout differential come November.

This is crucial. Some on here are going to be very disappointed when national turnout in November reaches 110-120m voters.

Well this means that 2010 and 2014 won't happen again because democrats aren't forgetting to vote lol

It just means that any swing or sway among independents is going to be felt across the large majority of competitive districts as they consistently tilt R rather than D, and that there'll be no turnout differential to exploit in order to compensate for it!

To be fair with you, I do not believe that a democratic wave is happening because I believe like you that now higher turnout elections don't necessarily favour democrats.

However, this isn't going to be a repeat of 2014&2010 because the dem base is going to vote en masse too!

[windjammer]

I think the chances of a GOP upset in New Hampshire are probably notably lower given this result.

And in NJ

[windjammer]

It should probably give some pause that the formula here for Dem overperformance is (relatively) great turnout in Dem counties overwhelming weaker margins elsewhere. Would be pretty shocking to have similar turnout differential come November.

This is crucial. Some on here are going to be very disappointed when national turnout in November reaches 110-120m voters.

Well this means that 2010 and 2014 won't happen again because democrats aren't forgetting to vote lol

This isn’t accurate — Democrats didn’t "forget to vote" in 2010 and 2014, otherwise their defeats would have been a lot more resounding. When you examine the turnout differential in individual races on a county-by-county basis (e.g. VA-SEN 2014), you’ll see that the drop-off in turnout didn’t benefit Republicans at all — in some races/states, there’s even a case to be made that it hurt the GOP (e.g. MI/MN 2014). Henry County GA also couldn’t have flipped from Romney 2012 to Nunn/Carter 2014 if Democrats had stayed home en masse. This is mostly just a media narrative akin to the baseless "Republicans are afraid of high turnout because they know that they can’t win with it" which also flies in the face of those special elections, where Democrats have quite obviously been the ones benefiting from lower turnout, something that has been true for many cycles now, which is why I don’t get why we’re acting "surprised" every single time Democrats "outperform expectations" in a special election with a completely unrepresentative electorate. Under our current party coalitions, it’s basically always going to be the case that the more affluent, more college-educated, more suburban/urban, more engaged/emotionally invested (politically), and far better organized party does particularly well in this type of election and performs a few percentage points above the general (November) partisan baseline of a district — it’s the new normal and not some "surprise," and I’d never try to predict a special election based on how a district voted in a November election (or vice versa).

There are obviously other factors to take into account (Obamacare,...) Etc but I firmly believe that the Obama coalition was suffering from being reliant on too many low turnout groups (minorities, young people,...). Biden's coalition doesn't have these problems as his electorate is older, more educated and ironically less reliant on minorities.

Look at Nevada results in 2014. A clear example about how lower turnout obliterated them completely.


But of course this wasn't the only factor

[windjammer]

I have the feeling the outcome might depend on the write ins votes, again lol

[windjammer]

https://twitter.com/maxpcohen/status/1708842257569251527?t=cQSZv1_w71ccGeYcgj5RE...

In theory a overperformance comparable to what has been seen in special legislative elections could lead to a highly competitive special election.  De facto though a resignation this late into the term could just lead to a vacancy, with elections that occur alongside the normal primary and general.

Trump carried this district by 16 points. This would be a very big long shot right?