Congressional Special Elections Results Thread (OLD, PLEASE UNSTICKY)

[Brittain33]

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Hey, remember when Dick Cheney went to "South Memphis" to campaign for a Republican in a special election in MS-1?

[Brittain33]

I'd be careful about reading too much into the results here. Don't be too quick to assume that Democrats are headed for massive victories over the next two years if Thompson overperforms here. It's too soon to make that conclusion.

True - Estes has been a disastrous candidate, possibly worse even than any of the GOPers running in Georgia's 6th.

When there's a bad national environment, normally competent candidates look like hapless fools and perfectly average candidates appear to walk on water.

[Brittain33]

(Also shows how brutal the Ohio gerrymander is, for what it's worth.)

...and how terrible Clinton's performance was for what people still think of as a median swing state.

[Brittain33]

This district Bishop originally ran in 25 years ago was majority African-American, I believe, and incumbency has helped him avoid challengers as the minority share of the population dipped into the 40s. It's not really comparable to SC-5.

[Brittain33]

But if fairness, the scandal hadn't truly blown open until after 06.

Does anyone truly believe a +30 R district would elect a Democrat if the incumbent was involved in such a scandal?

No. It could elect Libertarian or even Constitutional party candidate (or another far rightist), but - not a Democrat...

When has that ever happened?

[Brittain33]

AZ-08 is no longer considered safe R, only likely R. That is good news in a district that is R+13.

I don't see any way the Dem wins this other than a completely unexpected scandal.

[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.

[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.

[Brittain33]

Fairly interesting that the Republican already won in the 1st round.

On the other hand, only 30.000 people voted and I guess the average CD has a population between 700.000-750.000 people, so this special election is totally meaningless.

But you have been telling me that Republicans have not been as motivated to vote as Democrats.  Here they were almost as motivated.  Now you try to change rules of analysis.

In this election on this day there was basically equal motivation.  Can you explain any reason for that than the ones I have listed?

Turnout in this election was absolutely abysmal. Very low compared to all the other races. Are you arguing that is how things will look this November, that Dem motivation has fallen into the basement across the country?

[Brittain33]

I had not read the post two posts above mine when I wrote “absolutely abysmal.”

[Brittain33]

I mean, it would be fair to take from this result some pessimism on Beto O'Rourke's chances, given that he'd need some kind of major shift in Texas voting patterns that might be unexpected Hispanic turnout which didn't show up here.

[Brittain33]

It would be fair to say that there is no modern precedent in Texas that would give us reason to think O'Rourke has a shot at winning.

(Even Alabama, before Jones, had elected a Democratic governor in 1998 who nearly won reelection in 2002.)

[Brittain33]

Is there enough time for the Politico article “Republicans are freaking out about loser candidate in special election” followed a week later by “Republicans knocking on doors, making phone calls to ensure victory in special election”? I feel like we got that series at least twice already.

[Brittain33]

The Green candidate is *not* getting 5%. The fact O'Connor is down by 5 in his own internal and has to inflate totals for a Green candidate to give the impression there are gettable leftist voters in this district not in his 43% is what gives cause for skepticism. This poll is consistent with him losing like Tiperary.

[Brittain33]

DeWine is leading in the same poll that showed Brown ahead by 4. DeWine leads 42-38, OH leans R

It’s a TEA PARTY POLL.

[Brittain33]

It's interesting to see these numbers, but again, we should be very cautious in comparing them to other elections and hoping to derive benchmarks since they are a relatively small share of the total votes and we don't know what election day voting will look like. All we can get from this is that Democratic intensity is showing up in early voting, just as there's a small core of Democrats voting in every special election everywhere this year, and we don't see signs of a Republican organization in early voting.

I keep getting flashbacks to Democratic confidence drawn from Florida and Nevada in 2016 which I believed proved that Dems had won the election. I was surprised by Republican turnout off the chart on Election Day. The fundamentals of this race still point to a toss-up with a slight tilt to Rs.