State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[ProgressiveModerate]

Some quick research: The Republican is black (usually doesn't matter but if he has some ties to the local black community that could help in a very low turnout special election) and he owns a few car dealerships meaning he has high name recognition with his name everywhere on billboards in the area...and of course it was a dirt low turnout election the Democrats probably didn't even try for considering it was still a Safe R seat. But winning over 90% in a district that's over 30% black means he either actually won the black vote or turnout utterly cratered in heavily black areas. We'll have to look at the precinct results to see.

My guess is more the latter though maybe he could've come closer with the black vote than usual. The thing is there's a notable chunk the black electorate well above 50% who in this day and age will never vote GOP no matter what.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Again always take special elections that coincide with primaries with a huge grain of salt as turnout can often be lopsided. Still MI Dems had a relatively good night considering

[ProgressiveModerate]

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.

Um…the swing over the past few months compared to 2020 has not been bad at all, and debatably even positive for Democrats when compared to 2020 if you account for incumbency.

Special elections do tend to be kinda... miscellaneous and just because a clear trend doesn't present doesn't mean in hindsight people will point out things are tell tale signs that weren't so obvious at the time.

This does kinda make me think though that in 2022, state legistlative Dems won't underperform federal and gov elections as badly as in 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Kinda strange cause special elections have been a really mixed bag thus far, but again special elections tend to have really weird dynamics and poor turnout that are only a slice of the electorate.

Also, in Maine Democrats seem to ahve residual downballot support, especially in the northern p[art of the state which has gotten much redder on the federal level; kinda the inverse of what we see in VT and NH where Rs tend to outperform by default.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm in Virginia Beach and just saw an attack ad hitting Kevin Adams on abortion, seems like this might be an expensive race given how closely divided the state senate is.

Actually quite important, given there’s like 1 or 2 conservative/moderate Democrats in the VA-Sen who may help pass mild abortion restrictions and such

[ProgressiveModerate]

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

Generally, special elections in VA tend to be dreadful for Ds, but most other things seem to be working in Ds favor:

This is a Biden + 10 district, though it did go for Youngkin by 4.
In 2022, Ds won most Biden + 10 seats with relative ease nationally, with some obvious exceptions that had unique circumstances.
D candidate seems slightly better than R imo, but I'm prolly biased.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The precinct map on VAP looks like an R win, but the few black D precincts are just so lopsided.

It's also nice to see black Dems be able to win more and more regularly outside of 40%+ black districts.

[ProgressiveModerate]

The precinct map on VAP looks like an R win, but the few black D precincts are just so lopsided.

It's also nice to see black Dems be able to win more and more regularly outside of 40%+ black districts.

You do know the mail/early aren't yet allocated to precinct because of VA law?

Oh that makes a lot more sense. I was like goddam

[ProgressiveModerate]

It appears what happened in AD-27 is the Dem did massively better than Biden/Hochul with the Orthodox Jews, but did really really bad in the whiter Whitestone/College Point suburbs. Def a significant regional/neighborhood divide going on under the hood here.

In some way, the precincts result spell bad news for NY-Dems because of how bad they did in suburban Whitestone and College Point (literally 30+ points worse than Biden). The only reason the topline margin was good was because this Dem had unique appeal and outright won the Orthodox communities around Queens College whereas the Republican gains elsewhere seem more engrained.

[ProgressiveModerate]

https://twitter.com/BruneElections/status/1701775747650584762

Horrific performance with the non-Orthodox vote, but still a comfortable Democratic victory on the whole on the strength of uniform Orthodox voting. Probably net bad news for NYC Dems, but I don't think it really means anything outside of NYC.

EDIT: Underrated Hochul Administration accomplishment -- apparently New York actually counts votes quickly now?!

Ye in 2022 the votes were counted p fast as well. NY Dems passed an elections bill which actually fixed the slow vote counting.

Also ye, most of these extreme hard right shifts are due to local political reasons, but I could see them slowly bleed over to the federal level. Unlikely Biden does as bad as Hochul in many of these NYC communities, but could def lose ground from 2020.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Literally the first remotely positive sign for Dems in FL in forever, though it's still an underperformance of Biden 2020. In general, though, greater Orlando is one of the few places in FL where Dems have made decently consistent gains over the past 2 decades. One thing that is impressive though is this is a seat where Dems rely in large part on non-white voters, non-white voters that don't always show up.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Special election runoff tonight in East Texas between two Republicans. I don't think I can summarize it better than JMC, so..:

https://twitter.com/WinWithJMC/status/1752487091194204658?t=B7ZZgTDVqMy8-qmFfnmd...

https://twitter.com/WinWithJMC/status/1752487863407587524?t=Im47uuqbdV7Kg_e2Jnr2...

I know there's been some infighting in the TX GOP with many rural members opposing certain aspects of Abbott's agenda like vouchers that would hurt their local schools and such. Is the divide in this race just 100% pro-Abbott vs disagreeing with Abbott on certain issues.

[ProgressiveModerate]

Don’t do that Alabama… don’t give me hope.

It's crazy how if this overperformance held statewide in AL in 2024 Pres AL would be a swing state.

Obv for a variety of reasons this won't be the case and Trump easily wins Alabama, likely by more than 20%.