State Legislature Special Election Megathread v2

[smoltchanov]

Wow there are a lot of these happening tomorrow.

List?

ME HD 124
MS HD 32
MS HD 71
MS HD 101
PA HD 114
PA HD 190
TN SD 32

Most of these are strongly leaning to one or another party. So - little intrigue. But - we will see...
The most interesting today may be TX HD 125, Phoenix mayorality, and Orange (CA) county supervisor elections

[smoltchanov]

This time - good results for Democrats (the only bad is not even state legislative, but local - OC Sup 3). Probably we must see some more results before making even preliminary judgements about 2019-2020 cycle..

[smoltchanov]

Wow Dem candidate ran even ahead of Obama. What a hack can't beleive it. It's a safe D seat at the state leg level.

Thanks - glad you seemed to enjoy my maps! Sounds like your planning on making better ones yourself?

Miles, glad you "reappeared" here. Big thanks for your maps! It became my habit to look regularily at Decision Desk Twitter. One question: you have excellent knowledge of Southern politics. We discussed Mississippi in details recently. But what about Louisiana legislative elections? Term limits will cause very big turnover there, as lot of people, elected in 2007 (first time, when term limits were applied) are term-limited himself. Especially problematic, IMHO, is situation with few remaining white Democrats. If i am not mistaken - only 3 of them (Brown, Carter and White) may run for reelection, and chances of electing new ones in their seats, are,  usually, not good (many retiring white legislators come from 65-85% Trump districts). Your expertise would be very useful here...

[smoltchanov]

They really aren't. 2017 special election swings vs. 2016 was one of signs 2018 was going to be a big year for Democrats. Just like special election swings vs. 2008 and vs. 2012 were signs that 2010 and 2014 were going to be big years.

Not sure about the correlation between special election performance and Presidential years though, but the point is that it's not really that big a difference. Presidential performance is basically a baseline for the partisanship of the seat, especially in the past few cycles where there's been a very healthy correlation between Presidential margin and state legislative results.

So, we have special state house election in 2019. We're comparing it with 2016 presidential election in the same seat, but not with the same actual election for on a state leg level from the same day.. I don't know how predictive swings are but it looks to me that comparison no2 is better suited.

My only question to a guy was why map the first comparison and even Obama comparison not the state leg vs state leg comparison and that's it. People going berzerk for some reason telling me where and what he did, I couldn't care less to be honest if he's the messiah come again, it was a legitimate question to raise

May be it was legitimate, but still - it's useful to have some achievements in field of discussion, when you ask. And - really ASK, not MEET JUDGEMENT. It adds a sort of "respect" to person in question... But generally - the question "why you did it this way , not that way?" is, usually,  stupid: it's simply a creator's right to do something the way he consideres best. If you want to have it different way - no one prevents you from making it the way you like.

[smoltchanov]

Steven Baird, a recently registered Democrat who was largely running to make fun of the Democratic Party, has dropped out of the special election for California’s First Senate district. Baird’s name is still on the ballot.

My ballot (I’m voting for Silke Pflueger, the only real Democrat in the race) has been marked and is ready to be dropped off. The election is on March 26th, along with another special senate election down in the LA area (33rd Senate district).

I’m expecting Silke Pflueger to take one of the two spots given that there are four Republicans in the race. If Kevin Kiley or Brian Dahle win (unlikely on the 26th, but possible on June 4th), there will be a special election for their assembly seats. If someone gets over 50% on March 26th, there will not be an election on June 4th. California’s special elections for state legislature vacancies follow the Louisiana model, rather than the typical top-two run-off in CA.

Thanks for info! Generally - i consider Democratic chances of victory in this district as very low, but still - who is "the best" opponent for Pflueger? Dahle seems to me to be  more rigid conservative. And there is Rex Hime too, IIRC...

[smoltchanov]

Steven Baird, a recently registered Democrat who was largely running to make fun of the Democratic Party, has dropped out of the special election for California’s First Senate district. Baird’s name is still on the ballot.

My ballot (I’m voting for Silke Pflueger, the only real Democrat in the race) has been marked and is ready to be dropped off. The election is on March 26th, along with another special senate election down in the LA area (33rd Senate district).

I’m expecting Silke Pflueger to take one of the two spots given that there are four Republicans in the race. If Kevin Kiley or Brian Dahle win (unlikely on the 26th, but possible on June 4th), there will be a special election for their assembly seats. If someone gets over 50% on March 26th, there will not be an election on June 4th. California’s special elections for state legislature vacancies follow the Louisiana model, rather than the typical top-two run-off in CA.

Thanks for info! Generally - i consider Democratic chances of victory in this district as very low, but still - who is "the best" opponent for Pflueger? Dahle seems to me to be  more rigid conservative. And there is Rex Hime too, IIRC...

I would say that Hime would be one of the better opponents for Pflueger. He isn’t an assemblyman, so he doesn’t have that advantage that Kiley and Dahle have. I see Kiley as not quite as far right as say Dahle or Hime, so he might do better against Pflueger. Not sure about Dziuba tbh.

I would also agree that there’s a very, very low likelihood for Dems to flip this district. I noticed that Kiley’s assembly district (nearly half of the population of the senate district) was still solidly in favor of Kiley. I want to say it was almost 60-40, which seemed like the blue wave didn’t hit that district as hard. Might be misremembering margins though. I do recall that his opponent in 2018 was definitely on the Sanders side of the party, so that might’ve reduced the impact of the wave.

More thanks for interesting details!