LimoLiberal's Official State Legislative Special Elections Prediction Thread

[LimoLiberal]

So there's 11 special elections in the NY assembly and state senate next Tuesday 4/24. I've examined fundraising, facebook and twitter support, and news articles for each race and I've made some predictions.

First, here's the daily kos article briefly outlining each race: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/21/1758947/-April-24-New-York-s-Spring-Special-Elections-Spectacular

Here are my predictions:

SD-32: 93-4-3 (Sepulveda (D) wins)
SD-37: 57-42 (Mayer (D) wins)
AD-05: 59-41 (Smith (R) wins)
AD-10: 54-46 (Stern (D) wins) D FLIP
AD-17: 55-45 (Mikulin (R) wins)
AD-39: Unopposed (Espinal (D) wins)
AD-74: 82-14-2-2 (Epstein (D) wins)
AD-80: 84-16 (Fernandez (D) wins)
AD-102: 53-41-6 (Tague (R) wins)
AD-107: 51-49 (Ashby (R) wins)
AD-142: 51-49 (Bohen (R) wins) R FLIP - kind of - it’s complicated, read the DKOS blurb

My overall conclusion? It's going to be a horrible night for New York democrats.

Literally every candidate the party has put up in the competitive elections is out-manned in fundraising and Facebook support. Republican candidate's pages are flooded with support, likes, comments, and a common theme is Andrew Cuomo. His recent decision to give voting rights to parolees seems to have galvanized Republicans and I even saw a democratic candidate reacting defensively when asked about it by a commenter.

Democrats will pick up one seat though, AD-10 in Suffolk county, where county legislator Steve Stern (D) seems to be running a moderately well-funded and competent campaign in an Obama-Clinton district. But they'll lose a seat in Erie county, Obama-Trump AD-142, where the candidate on the Republican line is endorsed by the former assemblyman, even though he caucused with the Democrats.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

We ran a democrat in suburban AL who spent $2k and was kind of a nobody vs a well-known local Republican sheriff who spent $50k and the democrat outperformed Hillary by about 20%

This is despite Ivey being an extremely popular governor and no local factor hurting republicans / helping democrats in Alabama

Also, even in Connecticut, where Malloy has a 25% approval rating, dems are doing about the same as Hillary.


I guarantee you that dems get at least two seats here. Probably the Obama-Trump one and AD-10.

[Duke of York]

So there's 11 special elections in the NY assembly and state senate next Tuesday 4/24. I've examined fundraising, facebook and twitter support, and news articles for each race and I've made some predictions.

First, here's the daily kos article briefly outlining each race: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/4/21/1758947/-April-24-New-York-s-Spring-Special-Elections-Spectacular

Here are my predictions:

SD-32: 93-4-3 (Sepulveda (D) wins)
SD-37: 57-42 (Mayer (D) wins)
AD-05: 59-41 (Smith (R) wins)
AD-10: 54-46 (Stern (D) wins) D FLIP
AD-17: 55-45 (Mikulin (R) wins)
AD-39: Unopposed (Espinal (D) wins)
AD-74: 82-14-2-2 (Epstein (R) wins)
AD-80: 84-16 (Fernandez (D) wins)
AD-102: 53-41-6 (Tague (R) wins)
AD-107: 51-49 (Ashby (R) wins)
AD-142: 51-49 (Bohen (R) wins) R FLIP - kind of - it’s complicated, read the DKOS blurb

My overall conclusion? It's going to be a horrible night for New York democrats.

Literally every candidate the party has put up in the competitive elections is out-manned in fundraising and Facebook support. Republican candidate's pages are flooded with support, likes, comments, and a common theme is Andrew Cuomo. His recent decision to give voting rights to parolees seems to have galvanized Republicans and I even saw a democratic candidate reacting defensively when asked about it by a commenter.

Democrats will pick up one seat though, AD-10 in Suffolk county, where county legislator Steve Stern (D) seems to be running a moderately well-funded and competent campaign in an Obama-Clinton district. But they'll lose a seat in Erie county, Obama-Trump AD-142, where the candidate on the Republican line is endorsed by the former assemblyman, even though he caucused with the Democrats.

Epstein whose running in AD-74 is a Democrat. A republican has no chance in that district.

AD-107 which is the Albany suburbs has a good chance to flip.

As someone working one of the campaigns in the special election extravaganza i have heard nothing about Cuomo restoring voting rights to Parolees. Facebook support is not a good indicator of support. If it were Schumer would have lost in 2016 and Gillibrand will lose in a landslide.

Assembly district 5 (Suffolk County) and 17 (Nassau County) are both heavily suburban. Republicans have been tanking in Suburban areas and its very possible both seats could flip.

[Oryxslayer]

Remember you are replying to Limo, people.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Dems are picking up AT LEAST AD-10 and AD-107. One or two Trump districts flipping wouldn't surprise me, especially AD-17, taking into account the average swing we've been seeing in state special elections.

Btw, Rep. Donovan of Staten Island won reelection in 2016 by 26 points, but that poll that was released this morning shows him trailing by 10, and that he is under 40% support. Maybe we will see more than just two flips tomorrow.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

What happened to Limo's quarantine?

[Attorney General, Senator-Elect, & Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

What happened to Limo's quarantine?

[YE]

What happened to Limo's quarantine?

Wasn’t that just for the Congressional board?

[Duke of York]

Im genuinely concerned SD-37 could flip. Apparently State Democrats are taking it very seriously and treating like its tied. Republicans are using the typical attack of tying the Democrat to Deblasio. Its a despicable line of attack that has racial undertones. But Im holding to the notion that a 60 precent clinton seat is extremely unlikely to flip especially in the midterm environment we have been seeing.

[Bidenworth2020]

burke is caucusing as a d

[LimoLiberal]

Let's see how my predictions jived with the actual results:

Chart shows my predicted margin, the actual margin, and how far off my prediction was.

SD-32: D+89, D+87 - R+2
SD-37: D+15, D+15 - ND
AD-5: R+18, R+26 - R+8
AD-10: D+8, D+18 - D+10
AD-17: R+10, R+27 - R+17
AD-39: UNOPPOSED
AD-74: D+68, D+85 - D+17
AD-80: D+68, D+63 - R+5
AD-102: R+12, R+2 - D+10
AD-107: R+2, R+2 - ND
AD-142: R+2, R+4 - R+2

My predictions were off by an average of 7.1 points - which although large, is great for state legislative special elections which tend to be wildly unpredictable. Most impressive, I called each pickup for each party (AD-10 for Ds and AD-142 for Rs), and also predicted the strength of the third-party candidate in AD-102. Notable misses came in the AD-5 and AD-17, each Long Island seats where underfunded Democratic candidates underperformed Clinton-Trump numbers bigly. Of course, certain posters on this forum laughed at me when I mentioned the lack of funding and lack of facebook enthusiasm that each of these candidates had.

All in all, stellar predictions despite repeated accusations of concern-trolling.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7 this one time. Do you want a cake?

[IceSpear]

Let's see how my predictions jived with the actual results:

Chart shows my predicted margin, the actual margin, and how far off my prediction was.

SD-32: D+89, D+87 - R+2
SD-37: D+15, D+15 - ND
AD-5: R+18, R+26 - R+8
AD-10: D+8, D+18 - D+10
AD-17: R+10, R+27 - R+17
AD-39: UNOPPOSED
AD-74: D+68, D+85 - D+17
AD-80: D+68, D+63 - R+5
AD-102: R+12, R+2 - D+10
AD-107: R+2, R+2 - ND
AD-142: R+2, R+4 - R+2

My predictions were off by an average of 7.1 points - which although large, is great for state legislative special elections which tend to be wildly unpredictable. Most impressive, I called each pickup for each party (AD-10 for Ds and AD-142 for Rs), and also predicted the strength of the third-party candidate in AD-102. Notable misses came in the AD-5 and AD-17, each Long Island seats where underfunded Democratic candidates underperformed Clinton-Trump numbers bigly. Of course, certain posters on this forum laughed at me when I mentioned the lack of funding and lack of facebook enthusiasm that each of these candidates had.

All in all, stellar predictions despite repeated accusations of concern-trolling.

You forgot this one:

I have a gut feeling the Republican is going to win, or make it a close-ish race

The Democrat won by 50 points.

[IceSpear]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

Let's see how my predictions jived with the actual results:

Chart shows my predicted margin, the actual margin, and how far off my prediction was.

SD-32: D+89, D+87 - R+2
SD-37: D+15, D+15 - ND
AD-5: R+18, R+26 - R+8
AD-10: D+8, D+18 - D+10
AD-17: R+10, R+27 - R+17
AD-39: UNOPPOSED
AD-74: D+68, D+85 - D+17
AD-80: D+68, D+63 - R+5
AD-102: R+12, R+2 - D+10
AD-107: R+2, R+2 - ND
AD-142: R+2, R+4 - R+2

My predictions were off by an average of 7.1 points - which although large, is great for state legislative special elections which tend to be wildly unpredictable. Most impressive, I called each pickup for each party (AD-10 for Ds and AD-142 for Rs), and also predicted the strength of the third-party candidate in AD-102. Notable misses came in the AD-5 and AD-17, each Long Island seats where underfunded Democratic candidates underperformed Clinton-Trump numbers bigly. Of course, certain posters on this forum laughed at me when I mentioned the lack of funding and lack of facebook enthusiasm that each of these candidates had.

All in all, stellar predictions despite repeated accusations of concern-trolling.

You forgot this one:

I have a gut feeling the Republican is going to win, or make it a close-ish race

The Democrat won by 50 points.

Lmao, that's a good one.

Seriously why is this kid getting an ego now? He would do well with some humility. I've gotten pretty much every federal election prediction in the past year wrong by less than 4 (Al-Senate and AZ-08 were my worst where I predicted Moore by 2 & Lesko by 8 ), but you don't see me bragging everywhere (I guess this post is sort of a brag, but I admitted I predicted Moore would win lol).

[LimoLiberal]

Now, let's get some oranges and sunshine. We're going to Florida!

First up is the state house seat of HD-39, where the Republican incumbent took a job somewhere or whatever, i don't really care. This Polk and a little bit of Osceola district went for Trump by 19 points, 58-39 although it narrowly voted for Nelson (D) in his 2012 race. The Democrat, Ricky Shirah is being massively overwhelmed in both facebook enthusiasm and fundraising to very very young political novice Republican Josie Tomkow. This will be an easy hold for the Florida Republican party.

Tomkow (R) - 63
Shirah (D) - 37

Now we go down to Miami-Dade county, in HD-114. Lucy Baez, the democratic incumbent who flipped this open seat in November 2016, pled guilty to some mail fraud or whatever so that's why we have a special election. This seat voted for Clinton by 14 points (56-42) but like other parts of South Florida, is traditionally Republican with a strong Cuban influence, only voting for Obama by 1 point in 2012 and for Nelson (D) by 6, even as he romped to a 13 point win statewide. Both major party candidates are attorneys, Andrew Vargas (R) and Javier Fernandez (D). Vargas has 3x the money and 3x the facebook likes as Fernandez, and the GOP leads by 8 points in early and absentee voting even as they only lead by 1 point in overall registration.



Here's a good rundown of the race from FL cartographer/political nerd Matthew Isbell: http://mcimaps.com/floridas-final-2018-competitive-state-house-special-election-hd114/

Democrats are at major risk, and in my belief, are going to lose this seat tomorrow. Turnout has been robust for the GOP while meek for the FDP, and their candidate seems to have far more grassroots enthusiasm. If Vargas (R) wins as predicted, this would be a humiliating loss for the FDP and a major swing right from the 2016 results. Although, a moderately large Fernandez (D) win needs to be contextualized - even a swing right from 2016 could still be great news for Florida democrats considering how ahistorical and bad Trump performed among Cuban Republicans.

Anyways, my prediction:

Vargas (R) - 49
Fernandez (D) - 47
Third part candidate I can't remember the name of - 3

Rs pickup HD-114.

[Virginiá]

Lmao, that's a good one.

Seriously why is this kid getting an ego now? He would do well with some humility. I've gotten pretty much every federal election prediction in the past year wrong by less than 4 (Al-Senate and AZ-08 were my worst where I predicted Moore by 2 & Lesko by 8 ), but you don't see me bragging everywhere (I guess this post is sort of a brag, but I admitted I predicted Moore would win lol).

He'd be better at this if he learned from his mistakes. He has consistently over-favored Republicans by large amounts - sometimes obscenely large, and can't seem to internalize the fact that it's far better to overestimate Democrats right now, at least if your overall goal is to appear to be good at prognosticating. Instead, he keeps doing the same thing over and over again.

Also, reading his General Discussion posts, he also has some sort of fetish for rating every day/week where a poll is released or something big happens, as good or bad for Democrats/Republicans. I really don't see the point in doing that. Republicans could have 150 good days before November and then have the rest be terrible, and it would make all those good days meaningless. I should note that this is a big reason for why arguments would constantly start around Limo's posts - he can't stop himself from adjusting his outlook publicly with every single poll or event that hits the news. Most users here don't do that. They correctly understand that most stuff that happens in the year doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things, and that there is no point in scorekeeping with everything.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

Jesus christ. How do you get a race wrong by 35 points?

[○∙◄☻¥tπ[╪AV┼cVê└]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

Jesus christ. How do you get a race wrong by 35 points?

Mason Dixon got the 2016 Minnesota Democratic caucus wrong by 57 points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic_caucuses,_2016

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7 this one time. Do you want a cake?

Don't forget that one State Legislature District in Pittsburgh that went 75% in favor the Democrat. He had a "bad feeling" about that.

[ON Progressive]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

Jesus christ. How do you get a race wrong by 35 points?

Mason Dixon got the 2016 Minnesota Democratic caucus wrong by 57 points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic_caucuses,_2016

Nothing will top Gravis getting the 2016 MD-01 GOP primary off by 96 points.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

Jesus christ. How do you get a race wrong by 35 points?

Mason Dixon got the 2016 Minnesota Democratic caucus wrong by 57 points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic_caucuses,_2016

Nothing will top Gravis getting the 2016 MD-01 GOP primary off by 96 points.

Wait...what?

[ON Progressive]

You got AZ-08 wrong by over 10, VA-Gov wrong by 10, AL-Senate wrong by over 10


Great job on getting your predictions wrong by 7

Actually he got Alabama wrong by 30 points, lol.

Bumping by prediction up to 60-33 Moore due to recent events including Jones' disastrous racist mailer, Jones' support for abortion, and the exposure of the forgery of the yearbook signature.

Jesus christ. How do you get a race wrong by 35 points?

Mason Dixon got the 2016 Minnesota Democratic caucus wrong by 57 points.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minnesota_Democratic_caucuses,_2016

Nothing will top Gravis getting the 2016 MD-01 GOP primary off by 96 points.

Wait...what?

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2016/05/02/the-pollster-who-showed-a-candidate-up-29-points-before-he-lost-by-67/?utm_term=.bd5fdd8fab9d

[LimoLiberal]

Recap of 5/1 Florida elections

HD-39: R+26, R+20, D+6
HD-144: R+2, D+4, D+6

I was off by an average 6 points in these two elections, though I notably predicted a Republican --> Democratic flip in HD-144 but was incorrect.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

I thought you were going on hiatus?