State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

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Democrats now outperforming 2020 by 7.7% and 2016 by 12.4% when all special elections are averaged. I really think the pollsters are missing a LOT of Dem-leaning voters

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1ajyphWQru9TgDDiBe8kvEmApBEXND2wl9MVaxi1dndk/edit#gid=0

Special elections shouldn't be extrapolated too much for upcoming regular elections, BUT they have been a pretty consistent indicator of the national environment. The 2022 midterms demonstrated this to great effect.

House Democrats underperformed Biden by 7.3% in the 2022 midterms.

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But but but.. I was told by Riverwalk NH was winnable for Trump

The special elections mean nothing, as Democrats have outperformed in almost every single one. This is especially in places where Democrats rely on college educated whites, who turn out in low turnout elections (as opposed to where the Democratic coalition is more minority reliant, in which they tend to underperform in special elections as minorities are less likely to turn out in low turnout elections).

The last poll done here was pretty bad for Trump, and moves my priors a bit. Still, NH is a state where there is often a huge polling shift in the last minute, and could easily be the first state (past the big 7) to flip in a good night for Trump. Also the same poll had Clinton up by 11 in NH in their final poll.

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At 80% reported, MN SD-52B is only D +16.7, underperforming Biden's 29 and even Clinton's 18.

Maybe Florida is just trending left and Minnesota is just trending right. Or special elections don't mean much.

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Obviously this is a very underwhelming result for the GOP, but it's worth noting that Florida's rightward shift isn't just because of Miami-Dade County.

The cause of the shift in Miami-Dade; Hispanic Clinton-Trump voters, is the same as the cause of the shift statewide.

In some places like Osceola and parts of Tampa, yes. But it's more because of the conservative white retirees flooding into the state.

Democrats have collapsed in counties like Volusia, Pasco and Hernando. Others like Collier, Lee, Sarasota, Manatee, Lake, Brevard, Sumter aren't getting worse for them percentage-wise but are continuing to produce bigger raw vote margins for Republicans that favorable trends in the Jacksonville metro and Seminole just can't overcome.

Rubio 22 barely outperformed Scott 18 in Sumter (and underperformed in the villages), despite way outperforming overall.

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Final MN SD-52B results: D +17.5. Was Clinton +18.3, Biden +29.1. Suburban Minneapolis district.

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Why have recent special elections shown Republicans outperforming massively with college educated whites (ie NH, MA, MN, and even MS-Gov) while underperforming with Cubans?

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Why have recent special elections shown Republicans outperforming massively with college educated whites (ie NH, MA, MN, and even MS-Gov) while underperforming with Cubans?

I don't think we have enough evidence to make this claim. If you look at other state elections this November such as Virginia and Kentucky, Democrats did well.

Perhaps there's a slight anti-incumbent mood right now, but again not enough evidence to support that either.

Democrats did not do well in Virginia relative to Biden 2020, and Kentucky saw the largest left trends in the Appalachia coalfields.

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Early + Mail is D +8. Looks like a large Democratic overperformance though the total is only 500 or so votes right now.

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Still D +8 with 20% EDay precinct reporting. Could be a flip of a Trump +20 district.

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The caveat is that the EDay reporting precincts look disproportionately bluer from the more densely populated parts of the district. Only 1/7 of the rural part has reported with 6/21 overall.

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Based on completed precinct results looks like a 20-25% R underperformance versus 2022’s R +35 result.

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Deevers seems to be doing well in the first rural denser precinct reported, outperforming Stitt by 10 and only underperforming the 2022 R by 13.

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Finished at R +10.96, a 9 point underperformance of Trump 2020 and 26 point underperformance of 2022. Candidate wanted to ban all abortion and porn.

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https://twitter.com/PoliticsPA/status/1735366990707986502
This is a Biden +10 seat in Lower Bucks County, although the incumbent (who was a Dem) was unopposed last year.

Not impossible to see a flip, given what happened in Minnesota. It really seems like the special election environment has changed post November.

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https://twitter.com/PoliticsPA/status/1735366990707986502
This is a Biden +10 seat in Lower Bucks County, although the incumbent (who was a Dem) was unopposed last year.

Not impossible to see a flip, given what happened in Minnesota. It really seems like the special election environment has changed post November.

Based off of… one special election?

And completely ignoring the other one on the same night.  But he sees through (R)ose-colored glasses.

I have long believed that Florida is trending left, so the result was expected. Their only other recent outperformance (which wasn't even as big as Florida's) was against someone who called for banning no-fault divorce, abortion, and porn.

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Something seems up since the restart of student loan payments and Israel-Gaza in October.

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A special election in a state likely to trend left in 2024 doesn't mean much. The overall special election picture since November has been good for Republicans.

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Another example of why you take party turnout with a grain of salt in local races.

As usual these days, Dems outperforming the supposed baseline of the electorate hard thanks to persuasion/conversion.

No, it's because every single right-leaning person has reregistered as R in Florida. This gives R a huge registration advantage in Florida, but it doesn't translate to actual votes.

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Another example of why you take party turnout with a grain of salt in local races.

As usual these days, Dems outperforming the supposed baseline of the electorate hard thanks to persuasion/conversion.

No, it's because every single right-leaning person has reregistered as R in Florida. This gives R a huge registration advantage in Florida, but it doesn't translate to actual votes.

I was talking about the voter registration of the actual voters in this special election, which is readily available in real time on Florida counties websites. There were over 1,000 more registered Republicans voting than Democrats. "Twitter election experts" were all over these stats and predicting an easy Republican win.

Rs went from a 100k registration deficit to a 700k registration advantage in Florida in the last 3 years. This doesn't reflect the reality of how the state actually shifted. Thus, Ds are winning most the NPAs in Florida right now.

There have been certain posters who keep talking about how the massive Republican gain in registration in Florida means that the state has shifted right a lot. I have consistently pushed back on this for the last few months.

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The only real takeaway is that 6 week abortion bans are absolutely killing Republicans with women and there’s no point denying it.

TRUMP does not have this problem.

Keep telling yourself that lol.

Even if Biden improves in Florida, he probably will still do worse in the rest of the nation.

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The R in NY AD77 outperformed Trump by 17.