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

[Zaybay]

https://twitter.com/andy_levin/status/1357417569163104258

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https://twitter.com/SethARichardson/status/1357414840550248457

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https://twitter.com/ninaturner/status/1358875324390457345

That's the second congressional endorsement for Turner this week.

[Zaybay]

I don't know why Brown's supporters haven't updated that Wikipedia article, but on Twitter I've seen her getting endorsements from dozens of state/local officials, unions, and other organizations.

Meanwhile Turner's section of the article lists a bunch of people who don't live in Ohio.  Yeah I'm not surprised she got endorsed by Krystal Ball, Shaun King, Marianne Williamson, Susan Sarandon and Ilhan Omar.  I don't think those endorsements will carry much weight in OH-11.  But they certainly make her endorsements list really long.

Reading through the endorsement lists, it appears that Turner and Brown are getting different types of strata from the area.

Starting with Brown, she appears to be getting a ton of low-key endorsements. These are folks like pastors (which make up almost a third of the entire endorsement list), city councilors, mayors, etc. These are very small folks but also very numerous ones. Her biggest endorsements would have to be those of Beatty and Cordray, but I question just how meaningful these endorsements are. Afterall, Cordray is a bit of a washed-up name, and Beatty is a Columbus representative.

Turner's list, which in all honesty was much harder to find than Brown's, is made up of fewer folks but much more heavy hitters. People like Kenny Yuko, the current minority leader for the senate Dems, Sandra Williams, another big-name state senator from Cleveland, Mike Skindell, folks like that. Much bigger names, but fewer than Brown's exhaustive list.

And I actually think that kinda sums up the entire race to begin with. Brown is the chair of the county, someone who has close ties to a lot of folks in the area, but those ties only work with folks rather far down the ladder. Meanwhile, Turner's more star-driven campaign has more big names from the district in her corner, but you can argue that once you get past the top there's not much else (though there could be, Turner doesn't have an easy-to-find endorsement page so its hard to compare).

Either way, hard to tell who has the advantage. Turner's got money and big names, whereas Brown has connections and machine tactics. Definitely gonna be interesting to watch though.

[Zaybay]

https://twitter.com/AmandaBecker/status/1374007549566025730

I know, shocking endorsement. Who could've seen this one coming?

[Zaybay]

https://twitter.com/marisa_n19/status/1377252525141819393?s=21

This one sounds like a pretty big deal

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https://twitter.com/MondaireJones/status/1381971673914675200?s=19

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https://twitter.com/KosichJohn/status/1390305904055046150

I can't believe Turner is becoming the established politician's favorite.

[Zaybay]

Clinton won the OH primary in 2016, so i mean, she still clearly has sway with OH Democrats.

Hoping Brown can pull out a miracle. Turner is insane.

Just like how Clinton's best performance in the NY 2016 primary was in NY-16?

Few are voting or gauging their vote based on Clinton's endorsement. Even high-profile senators and house members don't have the strongest sway over the electorate.

[Zaybay]

This race has honestly been a rather great representation of just how disconnected the dialogue pertaining to an election can be from the actual election.

The contrast of the absolute vitriol, anger, constant arguments, rehashing 2016, and absolute hysteria that's occurring across media platforms on this race while the actual election is a rather quiet, boring primary where not even the debates are eliciting strong arguments between the candidates is truly something to behold.

[Zaybay]

Interesting race. It's basically become national establishment vs progressives and local establishment. Turner's still got significantly more local support. I'm feeling high single digit to low double digit margin for Turner right now

Brown has more local endorsements than Turner.

It's funny, originally this race was framed as national progressive movement vs local politician.  Then Turner got a few local endorsements and Shontel got some national endorsements and now everyone's frames are all mixed up.

I guess if you go by sheer quantity, sure. But it's pretty clear at this point that the important players and heavy hitters in the area are backing Turner over Brown.

It's like I said way earlier in this thread: The notables are endorsing Turner, while the smaller folk are backing Brown. Thing is, I made that post before the mayor of Cleveland, the entire state senate/house delegation, and members of Brown's own board went with Nina. Now, the balance is a bit strong in favor of Turner.

[Zaybay]

I see why DFP released a FL-20 poll yesterday and not an OH-11 poll.

[Zaybay]

Looks like this race was a reverse MO-01, with Turner winning African Americans but not by enough, allowing Brown to win with better margins among whites.