State Legislature Special Election Megathread v2

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Decent job in Fl, especially given the reason why this race even happened.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

I think GOP carries the Iowa race 54-46 tonight.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Have a feeling the Republican is going to win by 15+ in Iowa. The republican candidate has a great profile (former state rep) while the dem candidate is kind of meh.

Yep. Republican leading 61-38 in Hardin county early vote. Going to be a disappointing night.

Yeah, it's over, projecting Sweeney as victor.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

All of Hardin county in. Sweeney (R) won it 61.5 - 38.5. Clinton lost the two-party vote 65.5 - 34.5 in 2016 for the portion in SD-25.

RIP Freese.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Story county is the big democratic stronghold here. Clinton only lost the SD-25 portion 53-39. Freese needs to run up the score there to keep it close.

Not gonna happen.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

https://twitter.com/cjandringa/status/983890800995110912

Freese leading in the absentees in Story County

*IF* she can hold that percentage (58-42) she can make this a race. Story county casts the most votes in this district.

Sweeney will win.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

The GOP is going to win the Iowa seat. Great night.

We all called this an hour ago, and you are just calling it now.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Democratic New York assemblyman Frank Skartados passed away today. He represented district 104.

https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/04/15/skartados-death-deep-loss-community-editorial/515195002/

Rip, was a good FF.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Looking decent so far.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

HD-114 shifted 10 points to the right in margin from the 2016 presidential election. FL-26, if it followed the same shift, would elect a Democrat by 6 points in November. But Curbelo is a very strong incumbent. Si fuera Curbelo, respiraría un poco más tranquilo esta noche.

But this result shows the energy that Democrats still have. It is a Republican area downballot and Vargas seemed to have many advantages, including stronger ground organization and fundraising along with the district's Republican tradition. Many observers recognized this and called the race a tossup, leading me to my rating.

I find it interesting that there was basically no shift from 2016 in HD-39, even as this area was closer in 2012. Someone brought up a great point that an Alabama candidate spent 2K while his Republican candidate spend 25 times as much and still overperformed Hillary by double digits. Ricky Shirah (D) was similarly outspent. But he didn't overperform Hillary at all. This comes as Trump hits yearly highs in approval as categorized in the RCP and 538 aggregators. We can never know if Trump's recently expanding popularity has had an effect on these elections, considering each's obscurity. But perhaps that's something to look out for in the future, with Democrats barely (or not all) putting up swings in recent NY and FL state legislative specials.

Whatever the case, it's clear that Democrats still have energy. I won't be so quick to assume that a Republican will win an election (even with seemingly stronger organization and enthusiasm) in districts that shifted left from 2012 to 2016.

Limo, you promised...

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Wow. Clark Mitchell makes a massive improvement off of Hillary’s showing in Washington County with everything in. This is an impressive result for a dude who lives in his mom’s basement. Helen Tai will pull off a massive upset in PA178 indicating the blue wave is alive and well

Not just a basement dweller, but a super liberal neophyte that was actually quite a bad candidate.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Get out there and vote for TRACEY ROSEBUD!

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Does anybody know where I can find live results for MS HD 30 runoff today?

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

ughhh I wanna know!

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Tracey Rosebud will make a fine state house member indeed, congrats! (though yeesh, I cringe and shudder at that weak mov, but minorities are pretty bad with turnout in most special elections).

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

^^^No party listed on the ballot plus rural blacks have not been showing up to vote in special elections when there isn't a child molester on the ballot.

Yeah, dems are great turning out suburban whites in special elections now, the next step for improvement is trying to materialize these sorts of results in places that are mainly constituted of communities of color.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

BART STUPAK

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Rep. Lauren Arthur had massive facebook enthusiasm and the DLCC invested rather significantly here as well. She was a great candidate who had a great win.

Indeed, great win!

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

We deserved to lose our supermajority in the CA senate.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

I'm optimistic on the two Wisconsin specials next Tuesday. Both democratic candidates have decent facebook enthusiasm, and the DLCC is getting heavily involved. Also saw an article indicating outside groups are already putting tens of thousands in SD-01 in favor of Frostman (D).

I don't know, I think these two races are Lean R.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Limo was right and y'all were wrong, deal with it.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Wasnt surprised by the D underpreformance, the Ds also underpreformed in minority based seats in GA and FL. What did surprise me is how much they underpreformed, almost 25 points!

This can mean two things:
A. Hurd is likely to overpreform results, and Latino turnout will be rather weak in 2018

B. This means nothing, as its just the typical drop in turnout in minority based seats when its not election day

I don't know why they aren't turning out, given the rather...urgent situation emanating from the White House right now. 

I know right.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Has anyone heard of this?

https://www.twincities.com/2019/01/03/tim-walz-tony-lourey-mn-human-services/

Seat located in Pine and Carlton and went heard for Trump.

Yeah, I keep tabs on Aaron Booth's twitter.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

There’s a special called for Guy Reschenthaler’s old senate seat. Only Trump+6 and per ProudNewEnglander, both Wolf and Casey easily won it by double digits. Key to Dems winning the state senate in 2020. I imagine Dems would be favored there in the special

Surely more Democratic district, then present Congressional Reschenthaler took (PA-14), bu,t again - depends on candidates. Democrats would need young energetic moderate (Conor Lamb-2) here, probably. Whether they have it - another question.

No. The district voted 16% for Wolf and 12% for Casey, matching their statewide margins. And it’s 14 points to the left of the old PA-18. A standard Democrat should be perfectly able to win a special, particularly if the Allegheny GOP nominates perennial candidate D Raja again

Feterrman's wife should run, I'm not kidding. But it is too late, she should have run.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Final guess, Boysko wins 65-35.