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

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Schoharie is nearly all in with Molinaro+30.6% vs Trump+29%

[Arizona Iced Tea]

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

[Arizona Iced Tea]

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?

The Dem wins the special no matter who the R nominates.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

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.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

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 counted 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.

Yes, VBM was a regional Western thing before it became a partisan thing.  Similarly, widespread in-person EV was a regional Southern thing pre-Trump era.

VBM was a thing for years but until 2020 it did not take multiple days to count all the votes. In 2008 2010 2012 2014 and 2016 Arizona counted almost all the votes on election night and we knew who the winner was. This election week stuff is completely new and wasn't always the case.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Thank god Edwards was defeated in the R primary, but it seems like Maloy isn't that great either. Was really hoping for Hough but at least it wasn't the worst case situation.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Any predictions for the RI01 and UT02 margins?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Any chance UT-02 is a single digit race? It was Lee+11 in 2022 iirc.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Maybe don't run on abortion in heavily mormon Utah?

[Arizona Iced Tea]

This looks like a very high turnout election

[Arizona Iced Tea]

Looks like yet another Republican underperformance in a special election in the Biden era.

LOL at those proclaiming the opposite when no votes from SLC were even in yet.

Maloy is on track to outrun Trump though by a decent amount.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

We've certainly seen some overperformances (VA-04, MS, KY, PA) but we've also seen a 'break even' performance (RI-01) and several underperformances (VA leg compared to Biden 2020 numbers, NY county executives, LA, and tonight's race compared to 2020 and ML 2022). This is a very mixed verdict for Ds overall. Remember how slim Biden's winning margins were in several crucial states. Even the slightest declines could have potential to sink him. This isn't really convincing for '24 from Biden's perspective.

It's not exactly a positive sign for Biden's chances, but it isn't really one for Trump's either given Utah is much redder downballot.

Special elections don't really mean anything for Presidential races. Mike Garcia flipped CA-25 in 2020 but its not like that was a good indicator of what would happen between Trump and Biden.

[Arizona Iced Tea]

https://twitter.com/_fat_ugly_rat_/status/1727172159074930921