State Legislature Special Election Megathread v2

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Anyone who thought that Trump almost winning Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania in 2016 was not a fluke has been proven dead wrong today.

[Duke of York]

Anyone who thought that Trump almost winning Lackawanna County, Pennsylvania in 2016 was not a fluke has been proven dead wrong today.

Seems like there is serious buyers remorse in Pennsylvania. A good sign for 2020. That region is key to a democratic victory

[MAINEiac4434]

One note on the Maine election: the GOP candidate was a literal child and associated with white nationalist groups, while the Dem was a state legislator from 1996-2010.

It was never in danger (Bangor is progressive and Orono is a college town), but might have something to do with the absolutely abysmal GOP performance there.

[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..

[Miles]

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?

[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...

[wbrocks67]

Yep, Lackawanna only was HRC +4 in 2016, but Casey and Wolf both won by over 20% and the same happened tonight.

[Politician]

After the result in PA-LD-114 it's clear that Democrats have regained their special election edge.

[GeorgiaModerate]

After the result in PA-LD-114 it's clear that Democrats have regained their special election edge.

Don't draw too many conclusions from one district.  In some places like this they'll do as well or better than last year, in others they won't.

[Gass3268]

After the result in PA-LD-114 it's clear that Democrats have regained their special election edge.

Don't draw too many conclusions from one district.  In some places like this they'll do as well or better than last year, in others they won't.

One general observation I've noticed:

Obama -> Trump rural areas have stayed pretty Republican. Minnesota's SD-11 is a good example of this.

Obama -> Trump urban/suburban areas seem to have jumped back, either to 100% Obama levels or a mix of Obama/Clinton areas. Last night's special in Pennsylvania would be a good example of this.

[bilaps]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

[lfromnj]

After the result in PA-LD-114 it's clear that Democrats have regained their special election edge.

Don't draw too many conclusions from one district.  In some places like this they'll do as well or better than last year, in others they won't.

One general observation I've noticed:

Obama -> Trump rural areas have stayed pretty Republican. Minnesota's SD-11 is a good example of this.

Obama -> Trump urban/suburban areas seem to have jumped back, either to 100% Obama levels or a mix of Obama/Clinton areas. Last night's special in Pennsylvania would be a good example of this.

The MN special held ture to this. Carlton county jumped back. The southern farming portion didnt jump back.

[Gustaf]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

lol

[Landslide Lyndon]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

Dude, you are a run-of-the-mill right-wing troll and you are criticizing a national treasure like Miles.
Take your toys and go home before this becomes too embarrassing.

[bilaps]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

Dude, you are a run-of-the-mill right-wing troll and you are criticizing a national treasure like Miles.
Take your toys and go home before this becomes too embarrassing.

I can criticize whoever I want.

Also, I'm far from a right-winger.

Also, if you can write here, it's a pretty low bar for forum tbh.

PS Nobody here is arguing about substance of what I wrote, just protecting a guy from a bubble just like on twitter.

[Oryxslayer]

Miles has been contracted to make maps for Cook Political and Sabato before. Until anyone of us reaches that level, we do not have the right to decide what he makes and what he doesn't - unless he asks for input.

[ON Progressive]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

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.

[Brittain33]

Here's the Daily Kos tracker.

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1dXQhlzCAw05fC7P21eCivdfLOB-F3nykPVRPzG49U9g/edit#gid=0

As you can see, we are now roughly tracking to 2016 presidential results, which conceals incredible variation among the districts and superficially represents a swing back to Rs from 2017-2018.

There is some outlier data there like the PA district where Republicans only take 3% in either election but the Democrat did 30 points worse than Hillary Clinton because of an independent I guess. 

[Sestak]

LMAO Miles

[lfromnj]

well looks like Dem's are either gonna lose or lightly win the OC seat even with 6 republicans running a credible D candidate. I guess Trump' gonna win Orange county in 2020. Tossup/Tilt R.

[GeorgiaModerate]

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?

No, man, I'm not in the mapmaking business. My point was pretty obvious one. If you do public work, post it online, I hate to break it down to you but you could be criticized. It's a shock, I know. However I really didn't even criticize your maps or talked about how hard you do your job. I only pointed out that you were comparing apples to oranges, special election results vs presidential election in the same seat. Better comparison for sure is with the state leg election from the same year in which Trump won. Random observer on twitter and even here notes big swing to Dems but it would be a slightly different story if we compare 2016 state leg with this special. Your passive agressive tone that followed a normal comment is really something. Reminds me of 2016 election twitter in early vote reporting.. Remember, bias isn't what you report rather what you don't.

Dude, you are a run-of-the-mill right-wing troll and you are criticizing a national treasure like Miles.
Take your toys and go home before this becomes too embarrassing.

I can criticize whoever I want.

Also, I'm far from a right-winger.

Also, if you can write here, it's a pretty low bar for forum tbh.

PS Nobody here is arguing about substance of what I wrote, just protecting a guy from a bubble just like on twitter.

You really don't have any idea of the amount and quality of the work Miles has consistently created and published, do you?

[bilaps]

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

[Miles]

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...

It's been a while my friend! I've still been lurking around and uploading old races to the database here, but I'll likely post a bit more as Louisiana gets closer. Lots of interesting stuff happening in the legislature.

Miles has been contracted to make maps for Cook Political and Sabato before. Until anyone of us reaches that level, we do not have the right to decide what he makes and what he doesn't - unless he asks for input.

Thanks! It was great to work with them. Funny thing is they asked me for a lot of Presidential maps to help handicap downballot races. But now, I'm being told Presidential numbers are irrelevant

You really don't have any idea of the amount and quality of the work Miles has consistently created and published, do you?

I'm surprised Miles even acknowledged the existence of this insignificant right-wing troll.
He must have had a slow day at the office.

Yeah, sometimes you just have to go for it on these slow days! The vast majority of you guys are awesome and I'm happy to put out the content, but always inevitably a few who just want to complain.

There was an special legislative election in Alabama last year. My map compared it to the 2017 Senate result. Jones' performance was/is obviously about the ceiling for Democrats there, so of course they underperformed him. Had a guy saying I should have compared to 2016 President instead. Can't win sometimes!

In any case, looking forward to mapping more of these special elections this year!

[Landslide Lyndon]

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...

It's been a while my friend! I've still been lurking around and uploading old races to the database here, but I'll likely post a bit more as Louisiana gets closer. Lots of interesting stuff happening in the legislature.

Miles has been contracted to make maps for Cook Political and Sabato before. Until anyone of us reaches that level, we do not have the right to decide what he makes and what he doesn't - unless he asks for input.

Thanks! It was great to work with them. Funny thing is they asked me for a lot of Presidential maps to help handicap downballot races. But now, I'm being told Presidential numbers are irrelevant

You really don't have any idea of the amount and quality of the work Miles has consistently created and published, do you?

I'm surprised Miles even acknowledged the existence of this insignificant right-wing troll.
He must have had a slow day at the office.

Yeah, sometimes you just have to go for it on these slow days! The vast majority of you guys are awesome and I'm happy to put out the content, but always inevitably a few who just want to complain.

There was an special legislative election in Alabama last year. My map compared it to the 2017 Senate result. Jones' performance was/is obviously about the ceiling for Democrats there, so of course they underperformed him. Had a guy saying I should have compared to 2016 President instead. Can't win sometimes!

In any case, looking forward to mapping more of these special elections this year!

Keep going Miles. You and Lunar are making this forum proud.

[Bidenworth2020]

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...

It's been a while my friend! I've still been lurking around and uploading old races to the database here, but I'll likely post a bit more as Louisiana gets closer. Lots of interesting stuff happening in the legislature.

Miles has been contracted to make maps for Cook Political and Sabato before. Until anyone of us reaches that level, we do not have the right to decide what he makes and what he doesn't - unless he asks for input.

Thanks! It was great to work with them. Funny thing is they asked me for a lot of Presidential maps to help handicap downballot races. But now, I'm being told Presidential numbers are irrelevant

You really don't have any idea of the amount and quality of the work Miles has consistently created and published, do you?

I'm surprised Miles even acknowledged the existence of this insignificant right-wing troll.
He must have had a slow day at the office.

Yeah, sometimes you just have to go for it on these slow days! The vast majority of you guys are awesome and I'm happy to put out the content, but always inevitably a few who just want to complain.

There was an special legislative election in Alabama last year. My map compared it to the 2017 Senate result. Jones' performance was/is obviously about the ceiling for Democrats there, so of course they underperformed him. Had a guy saying I should have compared to 2016 President instead. Can't win sometimes!

In any case, looking forward to mapping more of these special elections this year!

DO you believe James Armes will win in the senate race?