Special Election megathread (4/30: NY-26)

[ProgressiveModerate]

Any reason GOP didn't do better here?

Biden's ratings are in the crapper in florida right now. why didn't that translate into a gop improvement in margin tonight?

If you're a Republican in a deep blue district, what would you do? Turn out for one election that you know your candidate will lose, or turnout in November with statewide offices that could be won by Republicans, and vote straight ticket across the board there. Most Republicans aren't even going to be aware of this election, and actually in years such as 2014 R's have done worse in this district. It's really not that big of a deal.

We've seen this kind of thing in other deep blue districts, such as OH-11 and LA-02. Very partisan districts tend to be a poorer measure of the national environment than more competitive districts, and even then they tend to be spotty and random.

To add on to this, there definately is the theory that the rightwards swing in deep blue minority districts in cities in 2020 Pres election was exclusive to the high turnout and that in a significantly lower turnout election, only your more "normal" voters show up. There is some evidence to suggest that voters who are less reliable are also less likley to vote in line with how their greater community does.

Overall I don't think her 60 point win is really anything of note because of how low turnout this was.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/1524115103867543553?s=21&t=_wOx-uMNH...

Pat ryan to face Molinaro in NY 19th special and general I assume.

Who knows what the district will be for next year.

I can't see it not having Ulster county.

There's several possiblities assuming the Special Master doesn't do something crazy but all land the seat somewhere between Biden + 3 and Trump + 7 which should be at least lean R for 2022. Ik this is stereotypical, but a seat like this is really the classic example of where Dems rely on higher propoensity voters so we'll see how true the theory of higher propensity voters turning out boosting Dems as well as the theory of if "suburbs" that swung hard left in the North East will swing back hard right.

Also I will point out Ulster alone isn't enough to make the district Biden district. In order to be a Biden district it has to have the blue parts of Ulster + at least 2 of the following:

-An arm into Vestal or Ithaca
-Utica without taking in too much of Oneida
-Significant turf east of the Hudson
-Some blue turf in the greater Albany metro (unlikely but still possible)

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/PatrickSvitek/status/1531774560454025217?t=OGk5mAx1vmo0xKdol...

lol, the guy is losing.

It will be very interesting to measure the mood of the electorate, especially the South Texas Hispanic electorate. If gop doens't win, it will be disappointing. Again, the low turnout will prevent drawing too big conclusions.

While IMO Flores is favoured, to act like she's anything close to a shoewin is a bit cocky IMO.

She def is running the stronger campaign and Dems are facing unfavourable headwins.

However, this is ultimately still a narrow Biden district and special election turnout dynamics can be really funky, especially in the RGV where there is a strong case a lot of Trump's new votes were from people who are very unreliable voters otherwise. We also haven't seen an R actually win this district in any notable election.

It could end up being an inverse of the GA-06 2017 election. GA-06 was a narrow Trump 2016 district that had some brutal shifts for the GOP. However, despite unfavorable headwinds and a strong campaign by Ossoff, Handel still narrowly held on, only to lose in 2018 and Dems have held the district ever since. Ossoff won it in his Senate bid and is now a US Senator.

This is also why I think even if Sanchez wins in the special, he isn't a lock for the GE despite the district getting bluer in redistricting.

Whatever the result, people are going to make too much out of it as either as proof the entire RGV is now gone for Dems or it'll go back to Obama levels.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Bro, are you doing an open seat race swing against an uncontested race with a popular incumbent? Why not the swing vs. Biden/Trump? Tom Price got 62% in the 2016 election but the real indicator in that district was the Clinton/ Trump number - the environment didn’t swing hugely against Trump in the few months before Handel/Ossoff.

I am making a BOLD PREDICTION that Republicans will also win TX-28 (Cuellar vs Cassandra Garcia) and TX-15 (Michelle Vallejo vs Monica de la Cruz Hernandez).

The signs were there that the Biden Admin would face massiv backslash because of their horrendous border policy in the Rio Grande Valley.

Yes, this is only a Special Election but the signs that persistet by over a year have now been confirmed.

I agree with TX-15; TX-28 is a bit difficult though because really only half the seat is actually located in the RGV.

Also worth noting when you combine the D and R vote totals it's 52-47 rn

The fact they're behind in Cameron County is troublesome though because it shows the GOP can break through in urban parts of the RGV given the right messaging.

Also interesting that most of the heaviest R swings appear to be coming from the Northern part of the district which is a bit less Hispanic and a lot more R.

Tunout in the Hidlago portion was just 4% rip.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Bro, are you doing an open seat race swing against an uncontested race with a popular incumbent? Why not the swing vs. Biden/Trump? Tom Price got 62% in the 2016 election but the real indicator in that district was the Clinton/ Trump number - the environment didn’t swing hugely against Trump in the few months before Handel/Ossoff.

I am making a BOLD PREDICTION that Republicans will also win TX-28 (Cuellar vs Cassandra Garcia) and TX-15 (Michelle Vallejo vs Monica de la Cruz Hernandez).

The signs were there that the Biden Admin would face massiv backslash because of their horrendous border policy in the Rio Grande Valley.

Yes, this is only a Special Election but the signs that persistet by over a year have now been confirmed.

I agree with TX-15; TX-28 is a bit difficult though because really only half the seat is actually located in the RGV.

Also worth noting when you combine the D and R vote totals it's 52-47 rn

The fact they're behind in Cameron County is troublesome though because it shows the GOP can break through in urban parts of the RGV given the right messaging.

Also interesting that most of the heaviest R swings appear to be coming from the Northern part of the district which is a bit less Hispanic and a lot more R.

The new TX-34 is a Biden +15 District so I think it's a tough District to hold for Flores. Not saying she is completely out of it but it is very tough. The other two (TX-15 & TX-28) I have as Lean Republican given the current Politcal Environment & Bidens extraordinary bad border policy.

TX-15 is def more likely to flip than TX-28 but ye this is a fair analysis.

I almost wonder if the gop regrets not keeping the old RGV config where they would have a good shot at all 3 seats rather than making 15 and 28 bluer.

One interesting district will be TX-23 cause it’s a battle of rural border Hispanics and diversifying suburbs.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Bro, are you doing an open seat race swing against an uncontested race with a popular incumbent? Why not the swing vs. Biden/Trump? Tom Price got 62% in the 2016 election but the real indicator in that district was the Clinton/ Trump number - the environment didn’t swing hugely against Trump in the few months before Handel/Ossoff.

I am making a BOLD PREDICTION that Republicans will also win TX-28 (Cuellar vs Cassandra Garcia) and TX-15 (Michelle Vallejo vs Monica de la Cruz Hernandez).

The signs were there that the Biden Admin would face massiv backslash because of their horrendous border policy in the Rio Grande Valley.

Yes, this is only a Special Election but the signs that persistet by over a year have now been confirmed.

I agree with TX-15; TX-28 is a bit difficult though because really only half the seat is actually located in the RGV.

Also worth noting when you combine the D and R vote totals it's 52-47 rn

The fact they're behind in Cameron County is troublesome though because it shows the GOP can break through in urban parts of the RGV given the right messaging.

Also interesting that most of the heaviest R swings appear to be coming from the Northern part of the district which is a bit less Hispanic and a lot more R.

The new TX-34 is a Biden +15 District so I think it's a tough District to hold for Flores. Not saying she is completely out of it but it is very tough. The other two (TX-15 & TX-28) I have as Lean Republican given the current Politcal Environment & Bidens extraordinary bad border policy.

TX-15 is def more likely to flip than TX-28 but ye this is a fair analysis.

I almost wonder if the gop regrets not keeping the old RGV config where they would have a good shot at all 3 seats rather than making 15 and 28 bluer.

One interesting district will be TX-23 cause it’s a battle of rural border Hispanics and diversifying suburbs.

There are National Polls out that have Democrats leading Republicans among Hispanics BUT only by single Digits. Some Polls have both Parties even tied among Hispanics nationally.

If this comes to pass in November GOP will pick up or do very well in a lot of Hispanic Districts around the Country.

I agree that the gop has potential to make huge gains with Hispanics in 2022 akin to how Dems gained with suburban voters. However, outside the southwest, few Hispanic voters are located in politically competaive districts/states as they tend to live in large ultra blue cities that under no circumstance are flipping.

Def have an impact in TX, NM, NV, AZ, and Central Valley though.

Another underrated possibility where it could cost them is NJ; low Hispanic turnout, specifically in the NYC part of the state was part of the reason the Gov race was so close, and Biden’s 2020 performance in NJ in 2020 wasn’t particularly impressive overall (it voted to the right of OR and not that differently from CO)

[ProgressiveModerate]

Just a reminder only 30k folks voted in this special election… compared with over 200k in 2020. That’s a very small small sample. In 2022 I’d expect at least 90k votes to be cast in the new iteration.

Kinda embarrassing how on Dems part they literally did 0 funding to Sanchez and got this awful turnout

[ProgressiveModerate]

GOP works overtime getting out the vote/upping their ground game while Dems work overtime on fundraising for races they have no chance in smh

How on earth will this party stay afloat when they're bleeding ground with Hispanics the same way they bled with Appalachia after 2008? Where are they actually gaining to make up for this massive L? Don't tell me suburbs, because those gains were definitely not permanent.

While I agree Dems need to adjust their messaging, what evidence do you have that their suburban/college educated gains aren’t “perminent”, at least any more so than GOP’s with Hispanics. Places like Gwinnett County and Collin are not going back to being R + 20 in a normal election cause they’re physically very different counties than they used to be.

Also generally speaking the National electorate is changing in a way that favored democrats. Does this mean they’ll get a permanent winning coalition? No. But as the nation gets more urban, educated, and diverse the gop HAS to gain with some of these voters to stay viable

[ProgressiveModerate]

GOP works overtime getting out the vote/upping their ground game while Dems work overtime on fundraising for races they have no chance in smh

How on earth will this party stay afloat when they're bleeding ground with Hispanics the same way they bled with Appalachia after 2008? Where are they actually gaining to make up for this massive L? Don't tell me suburbs, because those gains were definitely not permanent.

While I agree Dems need to adjust their messaging, what evidence do you have that their suburban/college educated gains aren’t “perminent”, at least any more so than GOP’s with Hispanics. Places like Gwinnett County and Collin are not going back to being R + 20 in a normal election cause they’re physically very different counties than they used to be.

Also generally speaking the National electorate is changing in a way that favored democrats. Does this mean they’ll get a permanent winning coalition? No. But as the nation gets more urban, educated, and diverse the gop HAS to gain with some of these voters to stay viable

We have been saying all of that since 2012 and look where it has gotten us. The GOP *has* been making gains with some urban voters and some Asian demographics as well. We are the ones who need to be making gains in the other party's demographics to stay viable. We can't just be relying on college educated voters all the time.

Because the gop has made gains to offset it, not because it isn’t true. If Dems were getting Obama’s numbers with minorities today for instance, they’d be in a very strong place but because Rs made gains that cut into those margins, it cancels out.

However, this shows how by default Republicans need to gain with these voters

[ProgressiveModerate]

RGV is just shifting right, no other explanations make sense. Not the end of the world. Better there than somewhere more vote rich.

That is not an explanation. There must be a reason for it - what is that reason? And what might that reason (or reasons) portend for the rest of the country? It isn't as if large numbers of people in the Rio Grande Valley went to bed one evening as loyal Democrats, had a dream that swung them wildly to the right and woke up the next as loyal Republicans, is it? That is not how things work. I will remind you (and everyone) that increasingly poor Democratic performances in the (overwhelmingly former) coalfields in central Appalachia were similarly dismissed as being of no consequence as, after all, the region is dying and depopulating, so why worry? Similar patterns would surely not be seen in other postindustrial regions (even though some had already shown indicators in that direction), ones never as culturally distinct and alien to the American mainstream, would they? The end result of being unable to see the wood for trees there was the Presidency of Donald Trump and a fundamental shift in the balance of your sovereign Supreme Court. Take this seriously.

I think it's for a variety of reasons:

-RGVs tendencies to back incumbents or the incumbent party federally
-Dems truly becoming the party of the "elite". I think in Texas as the state party becomes much more Austin and Urban based, this really affects greater messaging. Religious Hispanics in South Texas don't care that much about most cultural and social issues and infact it may hurt their relationship with those voters
-Trump's appeal to a lot of men in particular; much of this community has strong gender roles and expectations
-Non-Voters tending to break heavily for the GOP in an already low turnout region
-Immigration and the shift from Republicans as the racist party to the party of secure borders whereas Dems have done a poor job with the border
-Climate change becoming a bigger issue since this area relies on things like the oil industry

[ProgressiveModerate]

Mayra Flores was sworn in today and I had tears running to my face watching this.

https://twitter.com/GOPLeader/status/1539384342299803648

A bit ironic how literally 90% of the folks behind her are old white men with a few white women scattered in.

The main issue I have with the GOP is whenever a minority gets elected on the GOP, they often get pushed to the forefront to try and make the GOP seem more diverse than it actually is, even if they won on mostly or almost entirely white support. I'm not a fan of when Dems do it either, but at least their caucus is genuinely pretty diverse throughout and they tend to win over minority voters.

I will give credit to Flores though in that she both is a woman of colour and won off Hispanic voters which shows an expanding tent on the GOP's part.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Mayra Flores was sworn in today and I had tears running to my face watching this.

https://twitter.com/GOPLeader/status/1539384342299803648

A bit ironic how literally 90% of the folks behind her are old white men with a few white women scattered in.

The main issue I have with the GOP is whenever a minority gets elected on the GOP, they often get pushed to the forefront to try and make the GOP seem more diverse than it actually is, even if they won on mostly or almost entirely white support. I'm not a fan of when Dems do it either, but at least their caucus is genuinely pretty diverse throughout and they tend to win over minority voters.

I will give credit to Flores though in that she both is a woman of colour and won off Hispanic voters which shows an expanding tent on the GOP's part.

The district is like 80% Hispanic. She didn’t win on mostly white support.

No, that's not what ProgressiveModerate meant. There are mostly White Men & White Women standing behind her when she speaks.

Ye thanks for the clarification.

Also in my original post I do say to Flores credit she did win with Hispanic support, just that on the GOP's part there is very few cases of them actually winning a significant share of the minority vote even if the Republican themself is a person of colour.

RGV and the border is prolly the only part of the country where the GOP could win an 80% or frankly 70% Hispanic district under current coalitions. The only other areas where we've seen them sort of breakthrough in recent history would be the central valley and Asians in Orange County, and ofc Miami.

By and large they still lose minorities by massive margins throughout the country

Having a racially diverse caucus doesn't mean much if most of those folks were put there by almost entirely white support.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Mayra Flores was sworn in today and I had tears running to my face watching this.

https://twitter.com/GOPLeader/status/1539384342299803648

A bit ironic how literally 90% of the folks behind her are old white men with a few white women scattered in.

The main issue I have with the GOP is whenever a minority gets elected on the GOP, they often get pushed to the forefront to try and make the GOP seem more diverse than it actually is, even if they won on mostly or almost entirely white support. I'm not a fan of when Dems do it either, but at least their caucus is genuinely pretty diverse throughout and they tend to win over minority voters.

I will give credit to Flores though in that she both is a woman of colour and won off Hispanic voters which shows an expanding tent on the GOP's part.

The district is like 80% Hispanic. She didn’t win on mostly white support.

No, that's not what ProgressiveModerate meant. There are mostly White Men & White Women standing behind her when she speaks.

Ye thanks for the clarification.

Also in my original post I do say to Flores credit she did win with Hispanic support, just that on the GOP's part there is very few cases of them actually winning a significant share of the minority vote even if the Republican themself is a person of colour.

RGV and the border is prolly the only part of the country where the GOP could win an 80% or frankly 70% Hispanic district under current coalitions. The only other areas where we've seen them sort of breakthrough in recent history would be the central valley and Asians in Orange County, and ofc Miami.

By and large they still lose minorities by massive margins throughout the country

Having a racially diverse caucus doesn't mean much if most of those folks were put there by almost entirely white support.

Why not?

It means something in it's own sense, but whether or not you're actually winning over minroity voters in teh ultimately test

[ProgressiveModerate]

This is a weird side note, but it's weird to think about how theoretically NE Rs wanting to unpack NE-02 could lead to a 2D-1R delegation at some point this decade, even if NE stays pretty firmly R overall. NE-03 is a very effective pack.

Anyways it's good to see Dems appear to be matching Biden in this special election. Again though these can have weird dynamics.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm seeing a lot of different %s for the vote in in NE-01; CNN says 72% (which seems unlikely) vs NYT's more realistic 42%; buisness insider says 26% lol.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Based upon the rural counties nearly entirely in so far, Brooks appears to be doing best and Lancaster where she overperformed Biden in Seward County quite a bit. Flood appears to be overperforming in rural counties in the Northern and Western parts of the district

[ProgressiveModerate]

Fun fact that's really weird to think about; Dems got a higher share of the total vote than NE-02 in 2020.

Rmbr that dynamics in special elections can be a bit weird, but overall recent special elections have been pretty decent for Dems outside TX-34

[ProgressiveModerate]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in McAllen, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Dallas and you can repeat that in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada."

You do realize that Mexicans do not only live in Brownsville but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and, basically, throughout Texas? Right now, it might appear that the "trade" is worthwhile but we are a rapidly growing demographic and Democrats have a lot to lose from writing us off - there's nothing preventing Mexican-Americans from giving Trump 60 or even 65 percent of the vote in Texas in 2024.

Not writing anyone off other than a marginal voter in the RGV who likes Trump. Is there evidence urban Hispanics are voting like RGV and other rural Hispanics? I don’t see people saying that any of those urban Hispanic districts are at risk like TX-34. And I can match Collin and Denton County with diverse suburbs all over the country if we want to extrapolate, too.

Agreed with this. The Hispanic rightward swing in TX was in the RGV. Democrats absolutely need to be careful and try to reverse it, but as far as I've seen, there's no real evidence that suburban/urban Hispanics had a tremendous rightward swing (or ANY rightward swing) the way Hispanics in the RGV did. That said, I still do think Hispanics, even if just in the RGV, are a crucial demographic and Flores winning was a bad sign.

I'd also ad that Dems still net more votes out of most urban Hispanic communities in Texas even as the margin narrowed. Post-2020 special elections seem to suggest a lot of the rightwards shifts we saw with black and Hispanic voters in downtowns of large cities was due to high turnout as special elections have seen some pretty significant reversions. That's not to say Dems should take there voters for granted and not try to appeal to these voters, just there's no need for massive panic unless more elections come which show it as a fundamental shift even with lower turnout.

The RGV seems to be a more fundamental shift of voters actually changing who they are voting for based on issues and optics, which should concern Dems and even though turnout increased, Dems saw a significant dent in their margins and sometimes their raw vote totals.

With suburban communities, you have a spectrum of suburban communities that have shifted left due to a significant number of voters switching to shifting left due to the suburb itself changing.

A good example of this would be Atlanta, where this spectrum shines. In whiter highly educated Cobb suburbs which are pretty well developed and aren't growing a ton, evidence suggests that much of Dems gains were due to vote-switching from prior elections. In 2020, we saw downballot canidates significantly underperform Biden in these communities, and generally speaking the suburbs are pretty similar demographically to what they were 10 or 20 years ago. On the flip side, you have Gwinnett County where Dem gains are more fundamental, and due to general growth and diversification. Many communities in the county have had very consistent leftwards swings reguardless of the fundementals of the years, and infact, Ossoff and Warnock overperformed Biden in most of the County in their runoff elections. Even if Republicans ran a candidate tailored for Gwinett County, it'd be literally impossible for them to get a Bush level performance because it's a fundamentally different County now. This is the kind of Dem suburban gains that are likely to stick and even grow whereas any gains in suburbs at the other end of the spectrum may be more iffy.

Also as a sidenote, I really don't like lumping "suburbs" into one giant category as the term covers a vague bunch of communities, many of which are completely different from one another. Rmbr that a lot of suburbs have been shifting right too!

All in all though, while a strong performance by Dems in RGV is certainly helpful, it's not something they NEED to win Texas if they are able to garner strong performances elsewhere in the state. However, the GOP will likely need to be able to hold down some suburbs, likely whiter college educated suburbs such as University Party and Hunters Creek Village which are already well defined and where there was significant vote splitting in 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

It would be more accurate to compare this special to the congressional result in 2020.

Dems still have downballot strength in this district.

Hagedorn was never a great candidate, though. And I remember Tim Walz only captured this district in 2006.

Walz carried it in 18.

Walz represented it for a dozen years in Congress. Using his performance in MN-Gov isn’t indicative of a typical Democrat for the seat.

My point is that it has some residual democratic strength downballot.. Klobuchar, Walz, Tina Smith etc.. have either carried or kept it within low single digits in recent years.

That sounds like a cope. This special indicates the environment is neutral.

How is it a cope to provide factual analysis on a district lol.

The implication was you’re excusing Finstad’s performance by comparing it to a Dem Governor who previously represented the seat in Congress and overperformed Clinton by double digits in 2016 in said district. And comparing it to Klobuchar’s performance when she has always won statewide by 20%+

This is not a seat that should be in single digits in a Republican wave year.

I'm comparing it to literally every statewide democrat apart from one (Keith Ellison) who has outperformed Biden/Clinton in the district, in recent years.

What's a bit annoying is that this is a district where what a "normal" result should be is hard to pinpoint. Generally, I like to point to Pres election results to show what the outcome of a district should be without weird intra-state politics at play.

In this case though, the Presidential results fall outside what we see with basically every other race.

For me, re-alignment will sooner or later catch up in the district leading to more solid GOP wins, however, it is worth noting even in 2020 Smith's performance in the district was not much better than Biden's despite some down ballot lag, which I think shows that re-alignment has already caught up somewhat.

It's hard to argue this district is still Dem leaning or even truly a tossup given that Klobuchar's 2018 win was abnormally large for a Dem generally and Walz represented the district and that could've helped some downballot statewide Dems do well in the district as well in 2018.

The 538 PVI of R + 14 seems pretty fair.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Also a bit of a weird question but why are results trickling in so slow for this district when MN-05 counted extremely fast?

[ProgressiveModerate]

Also a bit of a weird question but why are results trickling in so slow for this district when MN-05 counted extremely fast?

Different lines. The SOS sent out a memo that counties were first to process races under the new lines and then do the Special when everything else was done.

I see that's a bit weird..., especially since most of the counties in the old MN-01 remian wholey int he new MN-01. Very little actually changes so why not just do it all in one go?

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm comparing it to literally every statewide democrat apart from one (Keith Ellison) who has outperformed Biden/Clinton in the district, in recent years.

I won't remain silent any longer, this analysis is just straight up trash. If you're arguing that this district is just permanently blue downballot you need to explain why it is that this long history of Democratic sympathies is only observable between 2006 and now. Yes Ettinger is probably benefitting somewhat from downballot strength but unless that downballot strength has increased between 2020 and now it doesn't even explain the differential between this and the 2020 congressional race if we're assuming an R leaning national environment, let alone the presidential one. Winning this district by single digits this cycle is bad for Republicans, point blank, period.

You're making assumptions on the basis that I've said it reflects a R+8 environment.. or whatever.. I haven't.

High single digits would be more akin to R+1 or +2.

Firstly that is very much on the low side of November HPV predictions both on this site and elsewhere. Most people think it will be R+4 to R+6. Secondly it would only indicate an R+1 or R+2 environment if I'm assuming uniform shift and the same downballot dem strength as 2020, but why would I assume that? After all, in 2018, a D+8.5ish year, this district was R+0.4 – 9ish points right of the nation. Is there any reason why I should prioritize Democrats' abnormally strong 2020 showing and say that the district is just 6 points right of the nation on the congressional level always and forever? This is a serious question.

Well, presumably you would use the most recent data point ? It's rather simple logic.

Generally, using 1 election result from a House district is a bad idea, especially since every cycle the race has unique dynamics. For isntance there were plenty of House seats where Dems did better in 2020 than 2018 even though the year was worse, and some of them we kinda could infer before the election (GA-07, TX-24, ect).

[ProgressiveModerate]

Boom and boom

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1557224537837764608?s=20&t=_kOgOm0...

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1557224881326116864?s=20&t=_kOgOm0...

There seems to be a consisten theme of greater polarization in these special elections. In the NE-01 special election the GOP actually overperformed in a few rural counties but Dem overperformance Lancaster was what kept it somewhat close. It seems like we're seeing a similar theme here where Finstad is matching or only slightly underperforming Trump in rurals but really underperforming in counties that either have a mid-sized "city" or college town or smtg. Not enough to cost him the election though, but still notable, especially since the old MN-01 and the new NE-01 actually voted nearly identically for 2020 Pres.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm assuming Ettinger winning Jackson County by a 20 point margin with all the vote in on NYT is an error.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm assuming Ettinger winning Jackson County by a 20 point margin with all the vote in on NYT is an error.

Probably not, as it's what the WaPo is showing as well.

It could be a reporting error. The result seems very unlikely, especially since Finstad is barely underperforming Trump in the neighboring counties.