Special Election megathread (6/11: OH-6, 6/25: CO-4)

[Torie]

SNIP

source

Explains a lot, I think.

Other than why Ron Hood still only managed an effective tie for second, technically third place.

The answer is, too many people actually know Ron Hood.

I will also comment that this race is a prime example of how lawn signs are a piss poor indicator of polling strength. I had driven through Perry County a couple times in the last few weeks and saw Bunches of cooperrider signs. I swear his ratio of votes to lawn signs was only about 15 to 1. Likewise I traveled through Jeff larae District Affair bit and saw massive numbers of signs for him. Even in those areas though, Carey signs were relatively rare even compared to those four say Bob Peterson and some of the others who've finished well back in the pack.

This was a weird race in that basically every non-Carey serious candidate had a clear base of support. You can see this in the results below Carey, with the legislators margins overwhelmingly coming from their districts and Ruth Edmonds obviously doing better in Franklin. Kunze for example won negligible votes outside of Franklin. Carey's support was relatively evenly distributed. This means you will see lots of lawn signs for the base candidates in their base areas, outnumbering Carey in a particular area but maybe not overall.

Good analysis. The weird thing is though that Mike Carey did extraordinary well and winning every pocket of the district other than the southern half of Fayette County going for Peterson. He won Fairfield County for example despite Lancaster in the northern half being Jeff larae district, and the southern half being part of Ron hoods old District. He won Perry County despite cooperrider having been a county commissioner there. Carey signs in the former were occasional but not common at all, even less than Peterson signs, and were completely absent in Perry County.

I wouldn't have been all surprised if Mike Carey had one by running competitively / second place in most other candidates home basis, while perhaps winning the vote in Franklin County where he's from. But again he almost universally beat every other candidate on their home turf. Though perhaps in Jeff lauray's District hiiraan second but far enough above Hood and the others, and in hoods part of the county hiiraan second there but far enough against Loray and the others, to win the county overall.

And yes, I know my voice to text app sucks

I assume that Ohio does not have open primaries. Correct?

[Torie]

Interesting maps and analysis of the election available below for those interested.

https://twitter.com/xenocryptsite

[Torie]

Looks like Delgado finally getting out there for Ryan. I'm surprised he didn't cut a commercial or anything, I'm sure it would've been helpful.

https://twitter.com/PatRyanUC/status/1561402456273485825

It is so odd this guy is running for a seat very little of which is in the district he is running in for the general election.

[Torie]

The other big county in the district which Molinaro needs to do well in

https://twitter.com/timkni/status/1561820311972110337

Timmy apparently does not know that Pubs think early voting is a Dem plot, and unpatriotic. He is most probably going to be disappointed.  I rate this seat at the moment as likely Pub. The Pub is actually quite presentable. On the Pub side of the ledger, while NYS has its share of "unclubbable" kook candidates, it more than most states also has some more presentable types.

https://twitter.com/dataprogress/status/1562083045645197312?s=21&t=EKsScp7n8LDi8oSdFTfydw

Interestingly, Molinaro is also running at the same time for the reconfigured seat in the General, and if Jamie Cheney wins the Dem nomination (tend to doubt it but maybe), then the Dem and Pub candidates for NY-19 in the General will be candidates that live within about 5 miles of each other, with neither living in the district as reconfigured (they live in the far NW corner of Dutchess).

[Torie]

I'm still keeping this at tossup/tilt Molinaro.

Firstly, it'd be quite a change if Dems streak of putting up solid performances in special elections (in demographically similar seats) suddenly just stops. Also, everyone keeps talking about how strong of a candidate Molinaro is, he's def not a garbage dump, but neither were Flood or Finstad. He just seems like a pretty generic R and nothing seems particuarly bad about Ryan.

Finally, this seat went to Biden in 2020 and has a good chunk of what many might consider to be the "Dem machine" or just very reliable liberal voters.

The one thing I think potentially works for Molinaro is that upstate NY tends to be a bit "overreactive" to national shifts so even a small shift in Rs favour nationally could make things very tricky for Ryan.

Both Ryan and Molinaro are solid candidates. Ryan's only problem (not sure it will matter much), is that Ryan is running in a different CD for next year, while Molinaro is running in the same one. So this race is effectively about whether or not Molinaro in the General will be running as an incumbent or not, which could indeed be a critical factor since the new NY-19 is a bit more Dem than the old one because Cervas rejected my advice to keep Tompkins out of the CD.  

It will be interesting to see if Molinaro is the incumbent how much he uses the couple of months to separate himself from Trump. Trump is really, really toxic in the more prosperous parts of the CD. The higher the SES of a precinct, the higher the Dem percentage, outside of a few precincts that have a lot of people of color, like the one I am sitting in.

There is no Dem machine. It is more about upscale reliable white Dem voters, many of whom vote from their second homes, which drives the local Pubs nuts.

[Torie]

I'm still keeping this at tossup/tilt Molinaro.

Firstly, it'd be quite a change if Dems streak of putting up solid performances in special elections (in demographically similar seats) suddenly just stops. Also, everyone keeps talking about how strong of a candidate Molinaro is, he's def not a garbage dump, but neither were Flood or Finstad. He just seems like a pretty generic R and nothing seems particuarly bad about Ryan.

Finally, this seat went to Biden in 2020 and has a good chunk of what many might consider to be the "Dem machine" or just very reliable liberal voters.

The one thing I think potentially works for Molinaro is that upstate NY tends to be a bit "overreactive" to national shifts so even a small shift in Rs favour nationally could make things very tricky for Ryan.

Both Ryan and Molinaro are solid candidates. Ryan's only problem (not sure it will matter much), is that Ryan is running in a different CD for next year, while Molinaro is running in the same one. So this race is effectively about whether or not Molinaro in the General will be running as an incumbent or not, which could indeed be a critical factor since the new NY-19 is a bit more Dem than the old one because Cervas rejected my advice to keep Tompkins out of the CD.  

It will be interesting to see if Molinaro is the incumbent how much he uses the couple of months to separate himself from Trump. Trump is really, really toxic in the more prosperous parts of the CD. The higher the SES of a precinct, the higher the Dem percentage, outside of a few precincts that have a lot of people of color, like the one I am sitting in.

There is no Dem machine. It is more about upscale reliable white Dem voters, many of whom vote from their second homes, which drives the local Pubs nuts.

I think this part of NY has a bit of spillover culturally from places like MA; you have quite a lot of smaller Dem towns that have been quite reliable even as rural areas have re-aligned. You also have a few areas that are tourism heavy, most notably Ulster County which also fits the definition of high SES precinct.

The Birkenstock Belt in Columbia County has now spread to near everything that is scenic, leaving the unattractive housing rich area of Stockport (including methhead heavy Stottville), the flat and unattractive crop fields of Livingston,  the dumpy area of Niverville, and the boring lower middle class tract housing area of Valatie as the last strong Pub holdouts.  The rest is trending Dem hard now.

As to Ulster, it is less the tourist areas, and more second home areas (Woodstock being both), in addition to New Paltz being a college town.

[Torie]

The EV vote has Ryan in NY-19 ahead in the most Pub county in the district, Schorarie (sp), and indeed the state by 20 points. Which means ... ?

[Torie]

Given the very disparate results between who voted when, projecting the result based on any given county until almost all the vote is in, is a fool's errand. That said, the poll and my likely Pub call based thereon are both now inoperative. The race should be skin tight. The Trump brand is that toxic this far north.

Go with Progressive Moderate's tea leaves reading going forward. This old fossil needs to pack it in. He's clueless and useless.

[Torie]

Columbia seems to be done? 65-35 Ryan

+15 Delgado in 2018
+24 Delgado in 2020

So that can't be right unless Ryan is insanely overperforming in really blue areas

I know many Pubs in Columbia County, albeit ones with whom I have some rapport, including one who "hired" me sort of. They all hate Trump. Columbia County perhaps has the highest Dem delta function in NY-19, and perhaps the state.

[Torie]

https://twitter.com/cinyc9/status/1568014352514711552

It’s nice to see this data.  But the conclusion doesn’t really follow from it.  If Sarah Palin had finished in 3rd place, she wouldn’t have had 58k votes to distribute to the other candidates.

It basically confirms that if a certain number of voters who voted Palin 1st and Begich 2nd, then Begich would have won in way Palin could not because Palin did not have enough 2nd place choices from Begich voters. It may be at this point that neither can win given how much they dislike each other.