State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[wbrocks67]

PA 37 is good news, though was hoping Iovino's margin would be higher than +4%. But probably too much to expect it to be close to Wolf (+16%) or Casey (+12%), but hey it's still way above Trump's margin, so that's good. While other states have faltered in special elections for Ds this year, PA has been a bright spot. Still resisting Trump.

[wbrocks67]

The fact that the PA special ran ahead of even 2018 bodes very well.

[wbrocks67]

Disappointing results in PA, though that one district almost always goes GOP downballot.

[wbrocks67]

Yeah, Louisiana Dems have been strong this year so far. They've been outperforming in a ton of these special elections. Granted, low turnout - but they got 83% of the vote in a Biden 70% district.

[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.

[wbrocks67]

WTF happened in HD-34? R+26 in a Trump +4 district? Come on.

[wbrocks67]

The Aug. 17th CT-SD-36 special will be one to watch. With the Dem-leaning Independent candidate in the race the Republicans have a serious shot at retaking this previously Republican seat. Along with the Republican advantage we've seen in CT special elections the seat is ripe for a Republican flip.

That's in Greenwich right? I actually really like the Republican who's running there. He ran last year and actually got pretty close even as Biden carried the district by a solid amount.

Yes in fact the Republican recently won the endorsement of the Greenwich and Stamford police unions. This race seems to be a clear toss-up.

https://www.greenwichtime.com/elections/article/Republican-Fazio-gets-endorsement-of-police-union-16361472.php

Is it really a surprise a Republican got the endorsement of a police union though?

[wbrocks67]

Uh... that connecticut result is not exactly proving my theory that college whites will switch en masse to the GOP now..

The Democrats barely won that area in 2018 and 2020 down ballot and now barely lost in in a far worse environment for Democrats.

and the Indie candidate was also a defacto Dem, wasn't he?

This essentially had the same result as 2020.

[wbrocks67]

Still a loss and disappointing, but this was actually a better result for the Democrat than I thought it would be. For whatever reason Dems struggle in CT special elections, even happened during the Trump years.

Yeah, I wouldn't even count this as struggling either. I mean, Biden did win by 20, but downballot it's been much redder, so for the Dem to only lose by 2 (with an indie D spoiler) in a Biden off-year, I'd say this is not bad at all

[wbrocks67]

Yeah, it's a small special election but given that its a college educated town that votes R in local elections (and at the R prez level pre-Biden), doesn't really scream "Biden is down -10% in approval in NH!"

[wbrocks67]

Hmmm, slight dem overperformance from 2020.

not much to read into.

It's funny how every time a Dem does better than expected, it's "not much to read into" but every time they do worse than expected it's "DEMS IN DISARRAY!!!!"

I'm honestly shocked it was basically the same result as 2020 Prez and actually better for Dems than the 2020 house race. Looks like the suburban backlash against Reps is still real.

[wbrocks67]

Isn't this like the 2nd or 3rd smaller local NH election where Dems have outperformed this year?

[wbrocks67]

I certainly wouldn't look too much at specials to determine how things will go in a few months, but this certainly paints a little rosier picture for Democrats than I expected before.

Much better to look at the average swing this year in all races plus polling.....if anything, the outlook has gotten worse for the dems.

I believe the GOP lead on rcp is higher now than it was on this day in 2010.

It just seems kind of hackish in my opinion to continue to argue that 2022 is going to be a precedent defying midterm when 4 years ago arguing that 2018 was going to be an historic D wave when much of the fundamentals remain the same: GCB polling, presidential approval, swing averages in special elections, etc.

I get this board is mostly dem, but it seems like y'all are setting yourself up for disappointment. Elected democrats know what is coming.

The elephant in the room is simple: the repubs only need to flip like 4 seats. If they needed to flip 20, that would be an interesting story/debate.

But 4 seats is a piece of cake when the sitting president is sporting low 40s approvals.

I wouldn't go by this, considering there was not only way more polling in 2010, but better quality polling, especially for the GCB.

[wbrocks67]

Interestingly, Democrats seem to be holding up a bit better in Pennsylvania in general than in much of the country.  I kinda wonder if the Republican wave may be a little weaker there in November compared to much of the country. 

Pennsylvania tends to buck the national trend quite a bit, we're just a "quirky" state I guess. 2014 is a great example, but again, I will always keep bringing up the 2021 SC race as well. Biden's approval was barely better than it was at that point, and Dems only lost that race by <1%.

[wbrocks67]

What are the odds the D wins Kiggans old seat this Tuesday? The early voting #s look promising.

[wbrocks67]

Interesting, Kiggans only just barely won this district in 2019 and actually lost it in last year's House race

https://twitter.com/vpapupdates/status/1612625559351164928

[wbrocks67]

What's great for Rouse is that he has a perfect safe D seat to run in for the November election that has no incumbent.   SD-22 is Biden+20 and covers a good portion of the old SD-7.   He'll have that seat all decade easily.

I think he challenges Kiggans for the CD in 2024.

Not sure how wise that would be given he underperformed Luria's loss at the CD level meaningfully tonight.

Not sure why you'd compare a higher turnout midterm to a lower turnout special (even though turnout was pretty damn good for a January special)

Luria likely would've lost in last nights electorate, given how even more R-skewing it was than 2022, so it's pretty impressive that Rouse still won. Just goes to show the GOP brand is still toxic in swingy areas, especially on abortion.

[wbrocks67]

Glad to see we are overinterpreting low turnout special election margins already. The only thing that really matters is Dems flipped a seat and now have a much safer margin in the VA Sen. Too bad the Dem had to be a former Packer though .

I don't get this comment, considering most of the 2022 special elections post-Roe *were* indicative of the general themes that would take us into the midterms lol

[wbrocks67]

A few more ballots were counted, extending Rouse's lead about an extra 0.5%

Rouse (D) 19,784 — 50.72%
Adams (R) 19,187 — 49.19%

[wbrocks67]

A few more ballots were counted, extending Rouse's lead about an extra 0.5%

Rouse (D) 19,784 — 50.72%
Adams (R) 19,187 — 49.19%

Looks like this is the final update:

Rouse (D) 19,923 — 50.84%
Adams (R) 19,227 — 49.07%

Rouse wins by 1.77%

[wbrocks67]

Dems did fine in the PA special last night. I think it was like 4% worse than Biden (R+35) but 5% better than the D in the actual senate election in 2020 (R+44)

[wbrocks67]

PA Dems continue to be on beast mode. Huge overperformances last night - the fact that they all even outperformed *Shapiro* is pretty incredible

HD-32
2020 prez: D+26
2022 gov: D+43
2022 HD: D+72 (vs. Green candidate, no R on ballot)
2023 special: D+50

HD-34
2020 prez: D+62
2022 gov: D+73
2023 special: D+76

HD-35
2020 prez: D+16
2022 gov: D+37
2022 HD: D+32
2023 special: D+49

[wbrocks67]

Allegheny county is just one of those areas in the country where the demographics are working hard against the Republicans. It just keeps getting uglier for them with every election.

I heard Democrats used messaging as the the three elections deciding control of the house and that may have helped with turnout. If you tell people their vote will matter they have a higher chance of turning out.

Yeah, from what I can tell, Allegheny Dems put a ton of effort into these specials and didn't take them for granted. The results speak for themselves IMO.

[wbrocks67]

State house special election incoming! This is a Biden +30 seat though, so no worries of it flipping

https://twitter.com/StephenJ_Caruso/status/1633537884362792978

[wbrocks67]

VA SD9 looks like it's done counting, the GOP has fallen below 10% there now.

Bagby (D) 89.84%
Imholt (R) 9.92%
Write-In 0.25%

Final result is pretty much D+80