State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[Devils30]

HD-34 is 100% in. Seabaugh (R) and Smith (D) advance to a runoff. The two Republicans in the race won 59% of the vote, which is an improvement over Trump and Reeves' performance.

Dems are doing awful in the multi-candidate races such as these, TX-6 and better in the higher profile races like NM-1, GA runoffs. That state Senate seat in Scranton was kind of in the middle but Ds are doing better in the regular D vs R one on one matchups. Dems will not win traditionally R districts in anything without trying.

[LtNOWIS]

HD-34 is 100% in. Seabaugh (R) and Smith (D) advance to a runoff. The two Republicans in the race won 59% of the vote, which is an improvement over Trump and Reeves' performance.

Dems are doing awful in the multi-candidate races such as these, TX-6 and better in the higher profile races like NM-1, GA runoffs. That state Senate seat in Scranton was kind of in the middle but Ds are doing better in the regular D vs R one on one matchups. Dems will not win traditionally R districts in anything without trying.

It makes sense. If you're a Republican, you have 2+ Republicans who have a real shot at winning. You have a real reason to turn out, because this determines who is actually going to represent you for a while. If you're a Democrat, you have not shot in a safely R seat, and there's no point in turning out to vote for some doomed person who's 100% certain to lose, either in round 1 or round 2.

So you have one party having an actually important election, and one party having the symbolic walkover election in a safe seat, at the same time. From what I recall we've seen the same thing in Louisiana-style special elections in safe blue seats.

[wbrocks67]

Well HD-34 is certainly a disappointing result for Dems. Hopefully the one-on-one is better, but Rep +19 in a district Trump won by a few is horrific. Hopefully Dems actually try in the runoff.

[Kevinstat]

2nd-term Republican lawmaker will resign his seat next month

Fecteau represents Maine House District 86, part of Augusta.  The other side of the Kennebec River from where I live is in that district.

There will almost certainly be a special election this year for the seat, on (odd-year) "Election Day" (November 2) or earlier.  Probably November 2, although as there will be a fall special session to tackle redistricting at least (who knows what other big issues might come up), I wouldn't 100% rule out it being called earlier.  There was a special State House election in like September 2011 with the justification being a special session to tackle redistricting, but that was when LePage was Governor.  For State House vacancies (unlike State Senate vacancies) the Governor can't act to fill a vacancy until the municipal officers make some proclamation or whatnot informing the Governor of the need to fill a vacancy.  A State Rep. from Westbrook died on November 12, 2019, and a State Rep. from Brewer died on December 19, 2019, but a special election ended up being held in early 2020 in Brewer (on March 3, the date of Maine's Presidential Primary) but not in Westbrook (where the seat went unfilled until the person elected for the new term in November 3, 2020 took office at the beginning of that term on December 2, 2020).  A paragraph (3rd paragraph after the headline) was added to the public notice of the Brewer special election by Secretary of State's Office that seemed to me like classic CYA.  Having watched past City Council discussion regarding vacancies (although these were for municipal positions, City Council or School Board), I imagine the Augusta City Council won't proclaim a vacancy if they're not sure it will be on November 3, sparing the city the cost of a special standalone election.  They may delay their "proclamation" until it wouldn't make any sense to schedule the election before November 2 (like the earliest possible Tuesday to hold it was only being 2 or 3 weeks prior).  I'm an officer (Treasurer) of the Augusta Democratic Committee (I'm not quite sure what the actual name is, like if and where "City" or "Municipal" is in there), so I'll be involved in helping the Democratic nominee in the special election, whenever it is.

This district (or its main predecessor, the one entirely on the west side of Augusta and including the northwest corner of the city) was represented by a Democrat from the 1978 election (before 1978, most of Augusta (or all of it before 1974) was in a multi-member State House district) to the 1994 election, when the Democrat elected in 1978 was unseated (the district had gained some people and lost a smaller number of people (the equivalent of three blocks, largely non-residential), but the bigger factor was probably the Republican wave that year).  That Republican termed out in 2002 and was replaced by a Democrat who was reelected in a slightly expanded district in 2004.  Democrats held open seats in 2006 and 2010 (a Democrat was unopposed in 2008 after the Republicans nominated a guy who had done some major trolling in the past that came to light after they nominated him to fill a post-primary hole, and then basically told their own candidate to withdraw so Democrats couldn't campaign on this candidate's past), but when Rep. Maeghan Maloney gave up her seat in 2012 to run successfully for Kennebec-Somerset DA, Republican Matt Pouliot, who was a post-primary replacement, defeated 2006-2010 Rep. Patsy Crockett, who herself was a post-primary replacement but it's not the same when you're a recent incumbent.  Pouliot was reelected 2 to 1 in the somewhat altered district in 2014 even though I'd heard the changes to the district made it more Democratic, and was unopposed in 2016.  Justin Fecteau (R), the current Rep. who is resigning as of the end of July 4 (eccentric much?), while seemingly a "some dude" in 2018, defeated an At-Large city councilor by a 2.13% that year and was reelected by 13.63% in 2020 (both two-way races, and both not counting blanks).

The Democratic city councilor (although local elections are officially nonpartisan in most municipalities in Maine and really seem to function that way in many of them, including Augusta) who narrowly lost in 2018 now lives in Saco.  There are a number of possible Democratic candidates I can think of, from the recent losers in that district to the guy who served from 1978 to 1994 who's kind of an "elder statesman" now, to Maine's first openly lesbian State Senator (from a neighboring district) who later moved to Augusta and served a term on the City Council.  One person I thought of as a promising candidate is apparently a "hard No."  On the Republican side, Councilor Heather Pouliot, wife of Sen. (former Rep.) Matt Pouliot, seems like a likely candidate and could probably clear the field in her party if she ran.  If she didn't run, there's a former city councilor (two different stints serving partial terms following vacancies) who would be formidable.  But serving in the Maine Legislature is very different from being on the City Council (only part-time pay with full-time daytime work during much of the sessions, although the benefits are decent), so a lot of the people I'm thinking of might not be able to afford to run.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Results from a saftley democratic AD-18 california district.
https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1410074044662091779

[Kevinstat]

Results from a saftley democratic AD-18 california district.
https://twitter.com/rpyers/status/1410074044662091779

Does anyone know the party affiliation of the various candidates?  Was there an R (or Independent, Green, or Peace & Freedom, etc.) candidate in there?

[DINGO Joe]

All D except Slauson-R and Britton-NP

[GeorgiaModerate]

The runoff in Georgia HD-34 between Devan Seabaugh (R) and Priscilla Smith (D) is today.  Here's a local article:

https://www.ajc.com/politics/politics-blog/the-jolt-the-little-election-with-big-names-behind-it/VKU2F32ACNBULB7YOKI62KS3RY/

The district is in suburban Cobb County and is R-leaning (Trump +4 IIRC) so I expect Seabaugh to win, but an upset isn't completely out of the question.

[Drew]

WI has a special today for an Assembly seat which includes a portion of Dane along with mostly conservative rural areas.

The special election in AD-37 happens today.  It was 56-41 R in 2020, which was a D swing from 62-38 R in 2016 (the 2018 race was uncontested as the D was kicked off the ballot).  The district includes a portion of Dane County including DeForest, Columbia County (only Columbus), and portions of Jefferson and Dodge.  The Dem will have to run it up in Dane and Columbia in order to have any chance at an upset.  There is an ideologically conservative independent candidate from DeForest who got 3% in 2020 and is running again.  The D and R are both from Columbus.

[walleye26]

Here’s the local article on the WI assembly race:
https://www.channel3000.com/special-election-to-fill-wisconsin-assembly-vacancy/

[GeorgiaModerate]

I had forgotten that in addition to HD-34, the HD-156 runoff is also today.  It's a solid R district and the contestants are Leesa Hagan and Wally Sapp, both Republicans.

[Matty]

Any decent people to follow on twitter for state level races like this? Seems like hardly any of the usual election followers are talking about results

[GeorgiaModerate]

Any decent people to follow on twitter for state level races like this? Seems like hardly any of the usual election followers are talking about results

IMO the two best Georgia political reporters on Twitter are Greg Bluestein of the AJC (@bluestein) and Stephen Fowler of Georgia Public Broadcasting (@stphnfwlr), but I haven't seen either of them tweet anything about tonight's runoffs.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Georgia results here (none yet): https://results.enr.clarityelections.com/GA/109978/web.276935/#/summary

[Matty]

In person early vote just dropped in hd34

https://mobile.twitter.com/brent_peabody/status/1415101138098171904

[Nyvin]

In person early vote just dropped in hd34

https://mobile.twitter.com/brent_peabody/status/1415101138098171904

Welp, doesn't look like any upset is happening here tonight.

[Matty]

way too early.

this is just in person early vote, which Rs do ok in.

Absentee vote and eday vote still out.

Dems in georgia mainly vote absentee by mail.

[Matty]

Big vote dump in HD34

Rep 3485
Dem 2549

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

How Dem are absentees expected to be?

[GeorgiaModerate]

How Dem are absentees expected to be?

Not as much as would be needed.  I'd say Seabaugh is very very very likely to win at this point.

[Matty]

How Dem are absentees expected to be?

Not as much as would be needed.  I'd say Seabaugh is very very very likely to win at this point.

Weirdly enough, about 220 absentees have been counted and Seabaugh won them

[Drew]

WI has a special today for an Assembly seat which includes a portion of Dane along with mostly conservative rural areas.

The special election in AD-37 happens today.  It was 56-41 R in 2020, which was a D swing from 62-38 R in 2016 (the 2018 race was uncontested as the D was kicked off the ballot).  The district includes a portion of Dane County including DeForest, Columbia County (only Columbus), and portions of Jefferson and Dodge.  The Dem will have to run it up in Dane and Columbia in order to have any chance at an upset.  There is an ideologically conservative independent candidate from DeForest who got 3% in 2020 and is running again.  The D and R are both from Columbus.

Penterman (R) leading Adams (D) roughly 50-48 with all of Dane/Columbia/Dodge reporting.  It's only the strongly R Jefferson remaining.  There won't be an upset, but we'll see what the final margin looks like.

[Matty]

Not sure what the absentee dump will do to the margin, but the R is up 63-37 in HD34 with about 9k total votes reporting.

[walleye26]

WI has a special today for an Assembly seat which includes a portion of Dane along with mostly conservative rural areas.

The special election in AD-37 happens today.  It was 56-41 R in 2020, which was a D swing from 62-38 R in 2016 (the 2018 race was uncontested as the D was kicked off the ballot).  The district includes a portion of Dane County including DeForest, Columbia County (only Columbus), and portions of Jefferson and Dodge.  The Dem will have to run it up in Dane and Columbia in order to have any chance at an upset.  There is an ideologically conservative independent candidate from DeForest who got 3% in 2020 and is running again.  The D and R are both from Columbus.

Penterman (R) leading Adams (D) roughly 50-48 with all of Dane/Columbia/Dodge reporting.  It's only the strongly R Jefferson remaining.  There won't be an upset, but we'll see what the final margin looks like.

I just checked Jefferson County’s website, and Penterman has 1,089 votes to Adams (D) 675, with one small precinct in Watertown still out. The two-person percentage should be about 55-45 when all said and done. Adams also won Waterloo 149-113, which I believe Trump won.

[Matty]

Ok….so it appears 100% of vote is in in HD34

The rep won by 26 points

What the hell is that about?