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

[Oryxslayer]

Also to note that Ryan would have won northern Dutchess as well if he wasn't facing a guy with a base there - that area is similar to Columbia and votes in statewide contests to the left to the district.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/cinyc9/status/1562930837477363712?s=20&t=3z6hFFSPDZ8wJkx...

New total from Alaska. Hopefully most will released at the scheduled drop tomorrow, with on the stragglers left before to the Tuesday deadline. Then after two weeks from primary day, all votes will have been processed that are available, and redistribution occurs.

[Oryxslayer]

Am I missing something or should that total add up to nearly 15,000 instead of 12,700

He caught that and realized he double counted about 2K 'questioned' votes further in the thread.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/ak_elections/status/1563375087461728258?s=20&t=FL-5EIbsB...

The final count for the special election is on Tuesday, the primary counts are declared to be done. There are probably about 2-4K votes left based on the number released today compared to various trackers and estimates. Sounds like they wanted to get it all done but ran out of time. These are the challenged votes and a few distant precincts, so speed is not exactly easy.

[Oryxslayer]

When are results expected for Alaska?

Late tomorrow.

Final results from reallocation yes. We may get the last pre-reallocation votes today somewhere between 2 and 4K mainly 'questioned' votes which were processed for the primary on Friday but appear to have not had the time to process for the special election.

Nevermind, see below

[Oryxslayer]

I get counting votes in Alaska is logistically challenging but the delay until the 31th for voter tabulation is inexcusable. Australia has electoral districts of similar geographic size and remoteness that can project an RCV election in less than 24 hours. Alaska needs to learn from them

Projection, and thats because they are fine opening up the reallocations before there were all the votes. However you obviously weren't paying attention to that election cause it took nine days for a 76th seat to be projected for Labor and give them a majority government, and seats were still uncalled for days after that. Almost exactly a month after the election Australia finally counted every last vote and then could project the senate seats which are decided at the state rather than local level. If Australia could not calculate the reapportioned votes until this point, like every city and statewide RCV contest in the US does to protect the legitimacy of the process, Australia would be slower then maybe even California.

[Oryxslayer]

4,000 more votes to count in the first round!

https://twitter.com/GalenMetzger1/status/1565059833128054784?s=20&t=fNTbifqj...

We knew these were there based on the Friday update, just it was uncertain how many. These are mainly 'questioned' votes.

[Oryxslayer]

The Detailed report. A little over 20% of Begich's votes exhausted, Peltola got a bit over 35% of his transferred votes.

[Oryxslayer]

Inflation is higher than in 2020, people are worse off if we just look at the economy. If this recovery helps though, it could mean that people don't think about it with the 'are you better off than you were four years ago?' cliche but instead just look at if the economy is better than a few months ago.

There have been political science studies that have shown this is the case.

Quite a lot of these actually. They tend to show that when talking about anything, proximity to the election is what matters. Voters have short memories. When thinking about your own abstract economic position, statistically people are most likely to look at the extremely recent situation and then compare to something else comparatively recent like the start to the year. This however is overridden by major 'generation defining economic events' which is such a nebulous term that I can only say that it is something very good or very bad that your brain won't easily forget. The 2020 Pandemic environment was one such event for many people - and some will therefore compare with that - but for others that was barely a blip in their economic lives.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/1603418182584238085?s=20&t=GD2y4VOm_fH...

Probably locks it up for McClellan, since their districts kinda overlapped and she got Kaine's support yesterday.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/1603418182584238085?s=20&t=GD2y4VOm_fH...

Probably locks it up for McClellan, since their districts kinda overlapped and she got Kaine's support yesterday.

I'm glad Democrats are uniting behind one African-American mainstream candidate to hopefully block Morrissey.

Does anyone familiar with the area know how strong Morrissey is on the ground? I just learned about the firehouse primary yesterday and I was shocked to discover his story. What is his voter base? How is he even a contender given his past problems, conservative views, and race?

He has deep and successful constituent outreach with a very specific section of his African American district. I'm not sure if that extends in any capacity to anyone he has never represented.

[Oryxslayer]

Finally, they have more than five counters.  I'm not sure how it ever made sense to have just five people counting.

In addition to what was said above, they literally had to throw this together in a matter of weeks, and also turnout was much, much, higher than expected for only a handful of locations.

[Oryxslayer]

I find it really sad how not even 30k people in a district of over 800k people voted.

My understanding is that this was all scheduled and organized in basically a week.

Yes. And the real embarrassing thing is that it's more voter turnout than the regular 2016 primary, not concurrent with the presidential one course,  which put McEachin there in the first place.

[Oryxslayer]

The UT-02 primary will be September 5, with the general election on November 21.

.
This is so odd to me - why not just have the general on the same night that the rest of the country is having its general?

I believe it's to align with local/municipal elections.

Those dates are August 15th and November 7th

The locals, or at least some of the big one's like SLC's, were changed to align with this. I think the situation is this is the earliest date legally available, but the state wants to save money and have the elections coincide.

[Oryxslayer]

Knowing Rs luck in special elections they are probably going to lose UT-02 to a Democrat.

What do you mean by this exactly: the base nominates a radical and the Dem wins the special, or Edwards wins as a ultimate RINO now, and then flips to Dem or D-caucusing Indie when the Utah Supreme Court re-legitimatizes the redistricting commission and they draw a Biden+20 SLC seat?

[Oryxslayer]

Current status of RI. Amo vs Rugenberg, Matos collapsed. Providence city has 63% of the vote counted by NYt estimates.

[Oryxslayer]

Cinyc's precinct tracker reveals sweeping cross-district support for Amo, except when there are local fiefs: Regunberg in East Providence (the city), Matos in the rest of Providence, Cano in Central Falls, Caey in Woonsocket.

[Oryxslayer]

NYT calls it for Amo.

[Oryxslayer]

Which Utah Republican is the least insane?

Edwards would make Brian Fitzpatrick look like Matt Gaetz.

To the point that we are speculating if she flips allegiances. In the scenario she wins here, and then the State Supreme Court orders a congressional remap that will make her potential seat noticeably urban and Biden-won.

[Oryxslayer]

Iron isn’t quite as nice looking for Edwards, 52-20 with Hough taking 28.

Hough taking a lot here is a portent for Washington, since it's the second largest county south of Provo, with Washington being number 1.

[Oryxslayer]

Which Utah Republican is the least insane?

Edwards would make Brian Fitzpatrick look like Matt Gaetz.

To the point that we are speculating if she flips allergenics. In the scenario she wins here, and then the State Supreme Court orders a congressional remap that will make her potential seat noticeably urban and Biden-won.

From dust mites to tree nuts?

autocorrect at 11:30pm is a cruel mistress

[Oryxslayer]

Why does deep red Utah have vote by mail? The idea of turning "election day" into election week is ridiculous and should not be the new normal. Before 2018 we never had to wait till after election night to know who won the races.

It’s funny how you guys think that “it takes a few days longer to know the results” is a legitimate argument against mail-in voting.

Maloy is definitely favored, as only 45% of the remaining vote is expected from Salt Lake and Davis Counties. And conservative candidates tend to overperform in late mail ballots.

The remaining vote from these counties is probably mostly election day. Utah does do election day in person voting. Since Salt Lake City/Davis didn't update after their first drop which happened only a few minutes after polls closed, election day ballots almost certainly haven't been counted yet (as there's no way they could have been included in the first counted batch since there's no way election day ballots are counted that quickly).

Utah is a nearly exclusively a mail ballot state, and has been for a while. If you wish to know why, drive out to the rural areas - trust me you'll pass through many on your way to the Parks. Maybe then you will realize that this is the most efficient method for having elections in the region.

To that point, what remains is not all election day. Also uncounted are the unknown number of mail ballots that will arrive late but with a postage mark from before polls closed. Most of these will show up before the end of the week. In fact, all of the remaining votes in the super-rurals are probably of this nature.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/maxpcohen/status/1708842257569251527?t=cQSZv1_w71ccGeYcgj5RE...

In theory a overperformance comparable to what has been seen in special legislative elections could lead to a highly competitive special election.  De facto though a resignation this late into the term could just lead to a vacancy, with elections that occur alongside the normal primary and general.

[Oryxslayer]

https://twitter.com/maxpcohen/status/1708842257569251527?t=cQSZv1_w71ccGeYcgj5RE...

In theory a overperformance comparable to what has been seen in special legislative elections could lead to a highly competitive special election.  De facto though a resignation this late into the term could just lead to a vacancy, with elections that occur alongside the normal primary and general.

Trump carried this district by 16 points. This would be a very big long shot right?

Average special legislative election swing right now is like D+9 to D+12 depending how you measure it, IIRC.

[Oryxslayer]

I think we can say that Maloy wins. Once again, we are seeing that Utah likes the GOP, just not the GOP tied to Trump. But It's notable how many votes are going to the many Third Party/Indie candidates in the Wasatch front section of the seat. Thats probably where a number of anti-Trump R's wo voted D in 2020 went.