Congressional Special Elections Results Thread (OLD, PLEASE UNSTICKY)

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

WULFRIC PROJECTION:

CANDIDATE   PARTY   VOTES   PCT.   
Debbie Lesko
Republican
87,580   52.6%   
Hiral Tipirneni
Democrat
78,841   47.4   
166,421 votes, 60% reporting (86 of 143 precincts)

[smoltchanov]

Very good result for Democrats, obviously....

[MasterJedi]

Gotta love conservatives and their pet trolls are billing this is a HUGE win for Republicans, 20 point swing is awesome for them lol

[Wiz in Wis]

NYT has this as a D +31 point swing from the 2016 result. By that basis, this is the largest Congressional special swing we've seen, including Alabama (D +30) and PA-18 (D +28). Wow.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/25/us/politics/special-election-results-shift-democratic.html

[LimoLiberal]

Gotta love conservatives and their pet trolls are billing this is a HUGE win for Republicans, 20 point swing is awesome for them lol

That's fine with me. The less scared they are of a blue wave the less they turnout. I hope Trump and the Republicans think the blue wave is dead.

[Brittain33]

NYT has this as a D +31 point swing from the 2016 result. By that basis, this is the largest Congressional special swing we've seen, including Alabama (D +30) and PA-18 (D +28). Wow.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/04/25/us/politics/special-election-results-shift-democratic.html

To be fair those AL and PA-18 races were measuring against the last contested races—2012, I think, in both cases. This is a weird measure because candidate quality mattered in old races, too.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

The next special election will be the OH-12 Primary on May 8.

[Gass3268]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

[Greedo punched first]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

Doesn't matter much though. The runoff is in Late September. Not much of the term is left by then, and no Democrat could carry this in the regular election in November.

[Tartarus Sauce]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

Doesn't matter much though. The runoff is in Late September. Not much of the term is left by then, and no Democrat could carry this in the regular election in November.

The district is about as Republican as AZ-8 and Democrats came within 5 points there during a high turnout election. If they nab TX-27 during the special, it's still possible for them to hold on in November.

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

Doesn't matter much though. The runoff is in Late September. Not much of the term is left by then, and no Democrat could carry this in the regular election in November.

The district is about as Republican as AZ-8 and Democrats came within 5 points there during a high turnout election. If they nab TX-27 during the special, it's still possible for them to hold on in November.

Perhaps in a scenario where Dems are reaching 260 seats, but I don't think the current generic ballot lead of D+7 or thereabouts suggests we're in that environment for November.

[Brittain33]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

Doesn't matter much though. The runoff is in Late September. Not much of the term is left by then, and no Democrat could carry this in the regular election in November.

The district is about as Republican as AZ-8 and Democrats came within 5 points there during a high turnout election. If they nab TX-27 during the special, it's still possible for them to hold on in November.

Perhaps in a scenario where Dems are reaching 260 seats, but I don't think the current generic ballot lead of D+7 or thereabouts suggests we're in that environment for November.

The current generic ballot lead didn’t suggest Lesko winning by a scant 5 points either, though.

[Tartarus Sauce]

If Chris Mapp runs in the TX-27 special and makes the runoff, a Democrat could win.

Doesn't matter much though. The runoff is in Late September. Not much of the term is left by then, and no Democrat could carry this in the regular election in November.

The district is about as Republican as AZ-8 and Democrats came within 5 points there during a high turnout election. If they nab TX-27 during the special, it's still possible for them to hold on in November.

Perhaps in a scenario where Dems are reaching 260 seats, but I don't think the current generic ballot lead of D+7 or thereabouts suggests we're in that environment for November.

The current generic ballot lead didn’t suggest Lesko winning by a scant 5 points either, though.

If you go by the GCB, the House is basically a coinflip come Novebmer. If you go by special election trends, 260 seats is very likely undercounting the amount of seats Dems pick up. So we know the range of possibilities for November and it constitutes anything between a narrow Republican hold to a massive Democratic landslide the likes of which we haven't seen for over half-a-dozen decades. The tail end of that probability continuum that's in favor of Democrats very much encapsalutes scenarios where Democrats are winning places like TX-27, so saying they can't hold it under any situation under the regular midterm is simply incorrect.

More specifically to Wulfric's point, he's making an artificial distinction between the special and the regular midterm for this seat. Democrats have been overperforming in both high and low turnout special elections (AZ-8 was similar to midterm level turnout as was PA-18), so it's nonsensical to assert that a Democrat that managed to win the special in September is inevitably screwed in November.

Republicans should be favored to keep the seat like they were in AZ-8, but the closeness of that election showed us just how many supposedly "safe" Republican seats aren't actually as safe as people thought.

[Badger]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

[Badger]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

What were Lesko's issues? She didn't appear to have anything major at all against her.

A bit of a Baum for an extremist, though in today's Roy Moore oriented GOP, she seemed like those second incarnation of Reagan by comparison.

Seriously, she wasn't the best. Or at least let's put it this way, the candidates in Ohio 12 are of a higher caliber.

[Tartarus Sauce]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

What were Lesko's issues? She didn't appear to have anything major at all against her.

A bit of a Baum for an extremist, though in today's Roy Moore oriented GOP, she seemed like those second incarnation of Reagan by comparison.

Seriously, she wasn't the best. Or at least let's put it this way, the candidates in Ohio 12 are of a higher caliber.

While being of higher caliber certainly helps, even A-listers flop in big waves. Just because they netted good recruits doesn't mean they shouldn't be worried about losing this race.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

Speaking as a resident of the district, I think we have a shot if it is Balderson vs. O’Connor.

[Landslide Lyndon]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

Speaking as a resident of the district, I think we have a shot if it is Balderson vs. O’Connor.

Isn't Balderson the one where establishment decided to coalesce around?

[LimoLiberal]

Nobody thinks their district/state is competitive until it is. I'm sure if you asked Duluth democrats in June 2010 if Jim Oberstar was gonna lose they would've laughed at you.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

Speaking as a resident of the district, I think we have a shot if it is Balderson vs. O’Connor.

Isn't Balderson the one where establishment decided to coalesce around?

For the most part*, but IIRC he's also pretty conservative** (although I could be mistaken) and the only part of his State Senate seat in the district is the Muskingum County part of OH-12 (which consists of about half the county's rural areas and the city of Zanesville, the latter which is less Republican than the rest of the county).  O'Connor seems like a fairly standard-issue Franklin County Democrat which will work against him in the district (Jay Goyal would've been a much better candidate and knowing what we know now, I actually think he'd win), but he's solid wave insurance and I think he's certainly stronger than the candidate we had in AZ-8.  I don't know if he'll get nominated, but I suspect he will and both the swing and Democratic turnout in Franklin County will be absolutely insane no matter who wins. 

Balderson vs. O'Connor would basically generic rural conservative R vs. generic Franklin County D.  In this district, that means Balderson probably wins, but in this environment an upset can't be ruled out either.  Franklin County is gonna be really, really ugly for the Republicans this cycle across the board.  A NoVA circa 2017 beatdown of all Republicans in Franklin County at the federal, state, and local level wouldn't be even remotely surprising and it could be even worse for them than NoVA was in a special election tbh (I can tell you this, even with the ODP being what it is, Franklin County is gonna have insanely high turnout in the GE and probably the special election GE, idk about the primary though). 

*Although I wouldn't say it's a "the fix is in" situation and I think he'd lose the primary if it were a head-to-head with a solid candidate from Franklin or Delaware County.

**Specifically, rural conservative as opposed to a suburban Stivers/Tiberi type of conservative

[Badger]

OH-12 would terrify me if I was a Republican

I'm not quite feeling it over here to be honest. There's a couple important distinctions. First off, it's likely the Republicans will get a decidedly good candidate. Not a C+ grade 1 like let's go who, as noted, has issues, but some well-established state senators and / or a County prosecutor who don't have a history of being bomb-throwing right-wingers. Likewise, while the Democrats may have a decent ish candidate in the Franklin County Recorder or a Delaware business man who is garnering a number of endorsements, they're not getting a Doug Jones,  Connor lamb, or Tipperani (sp?) Quality level candidate. Heck I don't think the candidates here are even up to the level of the candidates running the special elections in Kansas and South Carolina. I'm not sure these folks would be as bad as the Montana Congressional candidate ( assuming Franklin County's former Sheriff doesn't somehow win).

That said, there are not just a ton of candidates running for the Republican side, but a large number of viable candidates. There's at least three or four Hunan any other District would be a consensus choice for the party to nominate. With that said and the state senators and prosecutor at least being non Neanderthal level conservatives and obviously in stablished in types, there is I suppose a reasonable chance in a heavily fractured primary vote that one or two of the well funded wingnutz could worm their way through to a win. If that's the case, either of the Democrats top two candidates would have a competitive chance to win

Speaking as a resident of the district, I think we have a shot if it is Balderson vs. O’Connor.

Isn't Balderson the one where establishment decided to coalesce around?

For the most part*, but IIRC he's also pretty conservative** (although I could be mistaken) and the only part of his State Senate seat in the district is the Muskingum County part of OH-12 (which consists of about half the county's rural areas and the city of Zanesville, the latter which is less Republican than the rest of the county).  O'Connor seems like a fairly standard-issue Franklin County Democrat which will work against him in the district (Jay Goyal would've been a much better candidate and knowing what we know now, I actually think he'd win), but he's solid wave insurance and I think he's certainly stronger than the candidate we had in AZ-8.  I don't know if he'll get nominated, but I suspect he will and both the swing and Democratic turnout in Franklin County will be absolutely insane no matter who wins. 

Balderson vs. O'Connor would basically generic rural conservative R vs. generic Franklin County D.  In this district, that means Balderson probably wins, but in this environment an upset can't be ruled out either.  Franklin County is gonna be really, really ugly for the Republicans this cycle across the board.  A NoVA circa 2017 beatdown of all Republicans in Franklin County at the federal, state, and local level wouldn't be even remotely surprising and it could be even worse for them than NoVA was in a special election tbh (I can tell you this, even with the ODP being what it is, Franklin County is gonna have insanely high turnout in the GE and probably the special election GE, idk about the primary though). 

*Although I wouldn't say it's a "the fix is in" situation and I think he'd lose the primary if it were a head-to-head with a solid candidate from Franklin or Delaware County.

**Specifically, rural conservative as opposed to a suburban Stivers/Tiberi type of conservative

Troy is not a freedom caucus type conservative. Thus I agree with your assessment. I'm not saying the GOP shouldn't be worried, but likewise Democrats shouldn't get overconfident by pointing to Arizona 8th and the less Republican pvi of this District, and thereby wrongly assuming this is a genuine toss-up. At least not yet.

There is a freedom caucus endorsed Township Trustee running. She was the primary person I was referring to regarding the possibility of a Wingnut coalescing enough support to slip past multiple generic establishment conservatives splitting the vote by home county geography. I think O'Connor would indeed have even odds against her.

[Torie]

Politico has an article this morning about the OH-12 race.

Is Rep. Jordon a Democratic Party mole? He seems like he is the Democrats' best friend, again, and again.

[GlobeSoc]

Politico has an article this morning about the OH-12 race.

Is Rep. Jordon a Democratic Party mole? He seems like he is the Democrats' best friend, again, and again.

No, he's just fiscally 1980s socially 1980s generally 1980s

[Badger]

Politico has an article this morning about the OH-12 race.

Is Rep. Jordon a Democratic Party mole? He seems like he is the Democrats' best friend, again, and again.

No, he's just fiscally 1980s socially 1980s generally 1980s

More like 1880s