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

[wesmoorenerd]

Four points better than Biden's performance in the district on the margin. If that were a universal swing, Dems would net like fifteen seats in November. And that's with high turnout and a credible candidate on their part. The GOP should be worried about this result.

[wesmoorenerd]

Hot take: With GOP's underperformance even compared to 2020 in suburbs, is NC a more likely Senate flip than WI?

Possibly. I think the thing that holds it back though is Budd seems to have a lot less potential dirt than Johnson, but then again, Johnson was able to greatly outperform expectations in 2016 winning a race that many saw as a default flip.

Another big difference too is that in WI, most of the rurals are light red whereas in NC, you have a lot of ruby red rural communities. If there's an increase in polarization or increased turnout in these rural communities, sorta like what we saw in VA-Gov 2021, it'd be very hard for Dems to overcome.

Beasley is a better candidate than Barnes though, Barnes could become the latest casualty of the Elizabeth Warren wing.

To me they both seem pretty milk-toast though that just may be me.

They're both B-tier candidates. Solid, if not generational talents.

[wesmoorenerd]

Would a R+2 result be good for either side? You figure the narrowest of victories for Molinaro could suggest a short stint in Congress with high turnout Ithaca in the November version.

R+2 result in a Biden +2 district would be consistent with a dead even national environment (or slightly D-leaning, depending on how much stronger you think Molinaro is than Ryan, though I don't think he's that much stronger.) Would at least be encouraging for the Dems to see that a red wave is looking less likely, although it would also be a little disappointing given it would be a considerably worse performance than NE-01 or MN-01.

[wesmoorenerd]

Would a R+2 result be good for either side? You figure the narrowest of victories for Molinaro could suggest a short stint in Congress with high turnout Ithaca in the November version.

R+2 result in a Biden +2 district would be consistent with a dead even national environment (or slightly D-leaning, depending on how much stronger you think Molinaro is than Ryan, though I don't think he's that much stronger.) Would at least be encouraging for the Dems to see that a red wave is looking less likely, although it would also be a little disappointing given it would be a considerably worse performance than NE-01 or MN-01.

I saw a post on Twitter from a political analyst (don't recall which one, unfortunately) with a scale of possible outcomes in this race.  It was something like the following, with the caveat that this is from memory and some of them might be slightly off:

D+2 or more - fabulous for D
D+0-1 - very good for D
R+0-1 - good for D
R+2-3 - neutral
R+4-5 - good for R
R+6-7 - very good for R
R+8 or more - fabulous for R

This sounds about right. I was actually trying to come up with my own scale right as you were posting this. The way I see it:

An R win in the high single digits or double digits would be even better than polling would suggest and would lend credence to the idea that there's a polling error in favor of the Democrats yet again. Great news for Republicans. Would also suggest Molinaro is a stronger candidate than expected and Ryan is a weaker one, so good news for Republicans in both NY-18 and NY-19 in November.

An R win in the mid single digits would be slightly underwhelming given Molinaro's lofty polling, but would still likely suggest an R lead on the GCB. Good news for Republicans.

An R win in the low single digits would suggest an even or slight D lead on the GCB, but it would still be an underperformance compared to recent D specials. Kind of a wash, I'd say, good news for both sides here.

A D win in the low single digits would be a win, obviously, and a much needed one. Good news for Democrats.

A D win in the mid single digits or higher would suggest that recent Democratic performances in special elections are a trend, not an anomaly, and this is obviously great news for Democrats. Would also suggest Ryan is a stronger candidate than expected and Molinaro is a weaker one, so good news for Democrats in both NY-18 and NY-19 in November.

[wesmoorenerd]

Can someone explain to me why Molinaro is a particularly strong candidate? Like I get he's relatively young, attractive, and has kids but he's not a big name in the district, not particularly moderate, nor notably charismatic.

I honestly feel like in many cases on this forum, people rank candidate quality on these lower profile races based upon age, looks, and race rather than the actual candidate and their positions. Obviously these factors can still matter but there's a big hole missing in that analysis.

Is he not a big name in the district? I assumed he would be considering he's been the executive of the largest county in the district for a decade and it appears that he beat Cuomo by eleven points in the district in 2018. That said, I think people are generally underestimating Ryan.

[wesmoorenerd]

NY-19 seems kind of all over the place

DCCC apparently had Molinaro +3 last week (46-43) in one poll

Molinaro's team apparently had him +10 at some point (no time frame given) and Ryan had Molinaro up 3 in another poll

But then Democrats also had two other internal recent polls with Ryan in the lead

https://twitter.com/mahoneyw/status/1559233246721974277
https://twitter.com/TrumpsTaxes/status/1558888916379369472

I think all we can say for sure is that this a real tossup.

I'm still favoring Molinaro by a hair, if only to avoid disappointment later, but I do feel confident in saying Ryan and Molinaro will both win their respective general elections in November.

[wesmoorenerd]

Do we know how much of the outstanding vote is this heavily Native rural vote vs generic absentees? And do we know how heavily both are slated to break for Peltola?

[wesmoorenerd]

The zombie OH-11 poll is gone thanks to Virginia showing me how to remove it.

The end of an era