State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[Annatar]

I'm not a big believer in the idea special election swings tell us much about what will happen in a general election, especially in a Presidential year but for what its worth, the average swing in the 29 special elections since the midterms where both parties together got at least 90% of the vote has been 6.1% towards the dems compared to Trump-Clinton and 0.8% compared to Obama-Romney, the average in the 2017-2018 cycle was 11.2% vs Clinton's number and 5.9% compared to Obama according to DailyKos. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dXQhlzCAw05fC7P21eCivdfLOB-F3nykPVRPzG49U9g/edit#gid=0

For a more exact comparison, in the first 29 special elections post Nov 8 2016 which went through to August of 2017 the average swing vs Clinton was 12.5% in the dems favour and 9.6% vs Obama. Again I'm not sure this really means anything but it might be a marker of reduced democratic energy.

[Annatar]

The dems ran 3% ahead of Clinton in District 19 in SC and 8.2% in District 85 in PA, overall medium sized swings. So far we have had 34 special elections with both parties since the midterms and the dems have run 5.6% ahead of Clinton's number in them, in 2018 in the 49 special elections where both parties stood, dems ran 11.2% ahead of Clinton and of the 68 elections in 2017, dems also ran 11.2% ahead of Clinton.

[Annatar]

There were plenty of legislative districts Dems won in 2017-18 special elections due to low turnout overall that they ended up losing in the 2018 midterms when turnout was higher overall.

For example Dems won Senate District 1 in WI in June 2018 by 3% after Trump had won it only to lose it again in the midterms. 28,427 people voted in SD 1 in the June Special compared to 86,678 in the midterms when it flipped back to being Republican.

[Annatar]

Later tonight, results for the AL-74 special will appear here: http://www2.alabamavotes.gov/electionnight/statewideResultsByContest.aspx?ecode=1001055

The Republican won with 69%

What was Trump's percentage in this seat, Dailykos doesn't show the numbers for it in its elections sheet.

[Annatar]

An interesting milestone, according to Daily Kos. https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dXQhlzCAw05fC7P21eCivdfLOB-F3nykPVRPzG49U9g/edit#gid=0

In special elections post Nov 6 2018 the swing is now 0.3% towards the GOP when looking at 2012 Romney vs Obama, that is dems have done 0.3% worse in special elections on average since Nov 2018 than Obama did. Compared to 2016, Dems are doing 4.8% better, they have slipped below the 5% mark for the average swing.

[Annatar]

In the 52 special elections now where both parties share of the vote combined exceeded 90% since the 2018 midterms, Dems have out-performed Clinton by 3.9% and run behind Obama by 1.2%.

In the special elections held post 2016 through to the midterms, democrats had outperformed Clinton by 11.2% on average and Obama by 5.9%.

[Annatar]

All the numbers are in for GA 171, Trump won this seat 62.2-36.5 over Clinton, the margin being 25.7%. Today the combined R vote was 66.7% to the D vote of 33.3%. R Margin was 33.4%.

[Annatar]

Results in fully for TX HD 28, GOP margin is roughly 16%, somewhat better than Trump's 10% margin but not really a surprise, consistent with post 2018 midterm trend of democrats running slightly ahead to behind Clinton in special elections.

I would just add that turnout was very healthy for a special election at 20%, often these kinds of elections have 10% turnout.

[Annatar]

Here are the results of the 4 special elections vs 2020, I have rounded to the nearest full number with the change in margin in brackets, according to DDHQ all the votes are in.

GA HD-34: Trump +4, R+26 (+22)
AL SD-34: Trump+42, R+61 (+19)
AL HD-73: Trump+33, R+50 (+17)
WI SD-37: Trump +11, R+10 (-1)

Overall Republicans ran significantly ahead of Trump on average although with variation with SD-37 in WI voting like 2020.