State Legislature Special Election Megathread v3

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/daveweigel/status/1394836455248302080

Seems like we can pencil in a Dem win but lets see about the margin.

[Devils30]

It's a solid result for the Dems, with the greens included it's about 61-39 when giving Libertarians to GOP.

[Devils30]

It's a solid result for the Dems, with the greens included it's about 61-39 when giving Libertarians to GOP.

Assuming that all Green voters would have broken for the Democrat is nonsense.

It's not a 50-50 thing with these types, sorry. Not 100% of course but the vast majority absolutely are Biden over Trump and D over R.

[Devils30]

It's partisan because the current Governor is a Dem but might not really be applicable to much in the future.

[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.

[Devils30]

This district is like the inverse of ancestral Dems in southern WV.

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/dlcc/status/1435391586112872449?s=21

Dems flip a Biden +3, Romney/McCain+bajillion state house seat in Bedford.

Romney won this by 26 in 2012! These results are pretty meaningless but still a good sign for Dems to win an off-year in an ancestrally R seat like this.

Not really too relevant but not  terribly consistent with Biden at 44/54 in NH either.

[Devils30]

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!"

Bedford voted R in the NH-1 House election last fall 50-49%. If Dems can start winning these types of places down ballot more it will help a lot in the House.

[Devils30]

It looks like on the whole, Democrats are holding their own and will probably only narrowly lose by an amount where they can win back in 2024.

Pappas only won this town by 0.6 in 2018 FWIW also.

[Devils30]

Trends are real I guess. Maybe 2022 will be a 2020/2018 in the suburbs but a 2016 or worse everywhere else.

That’s a pretty weak win for GOP. If trends continue it might help Rs with seats like PA-8, WI-3 but screw them over in Georgia, Arizona and metro Philly, Milwaukee. I wonder if Dem $ is best going to offensive opportunities in Cali, that along with new NY maps seem best chance.

[Devils30]

Well individual races shouldn't be read into, but one bright spot for democrats is that there's no real trend of underperformance in state house races like the republicans had in 2017 before the 2018 blue wave.

Can’t emphasize enough that that also has a lot do with the Democratic base becoming increasingly affluent and high-propensity. Even larger patterns in these state legislative elections are only worth cautiously reading into if there’s no large disparity in the turnout of the two parties (especially relative to what we can expect from a regular November election).

Republicans at some point should ditch the tax cuts for the rich and be a real working class party. The right politician could pull it off, but would need to ditch the white nationalism without ditching social conservatism.

[Devils30]

It's just one piece of the puzzle. But the idea that Wisconsin is going red, Georgia blue seems strengthened by 2021 elections. IA is a bad omen for Ds in WI but are states like MI, PA suburban enough to avoid a Dem meltdown?

[Devils30]

This was a Trump+16 seat, Dems did not have a chance here once the incumbent retired.

Special election themes so far:

Dems holding their own in suburbs..they got Biden numbers in a couple in NH and IA a month ago and beat their 2020 state rep numbers in both. See also NM-1.

GOP continuing to improve in small towns, see tonight in IA. Also improved a bit with rural Hispanics in Cali while not doing anything special with urban ones in CA or NM-1.

Wwc areas that are more urban are inconclusive. Dems did well in the Scranton state senate election but that’s such a small sample.

It’s 2016-20 trends continued.

[Devils30]

This was a Trump+16 seat, Dems did not have a chance here once the incumbent retired.

Yeah, but they literally lost by 20 points when it was seen as just Tilt R. That's not a good sign for them.

Not a single Dem in the House is in a district greater than Trump +6. And zero Trump state Dems are on the 2022 Senate ballot. This seat was going to flip period but rurals keep trending R.

[Devils30]

I wouldn’t say a D underperformance of four points is that bad, but it does indicate that whatever remaining ancestral D strength remained in this area downballot is gone. Doesn’t bode well for WI-3, WI-Sen, anything in IA ever, or even possibly some stuff in MN come 2022.

I don’t think this says much about the state of things outside this region, however, and shouldn’t be extrapolated too much - it’s only a few thousand votes.

For WI the Dems are better asking the court for another Milwaukee area D seat rather than saving the current version of WI-3.

[Devils30]

This Tuesday (7/18) will feature a special election in WI assembly district 24 (Grafton, portions of Mequon, the village of Germantown, and parts of Menominee Falls). Trump won this district by 16 in 2020, but Evers narrowed that a few points and Janet only lost it by low double digits.

While the Republican candidate is heavily favored, this is a district trending left. The margin will be interesting to see.

https://decisiondeskhq.com/election-results-wisconsin-state-assembly-24-special-election/

Trump +16, looks like another major GOP underperformance in the suburbs. Dems continue to make gains in the WOW.

[Devils30]

Another Dem overperformance in a special election... where have I seen this before

The aggregate of GOP underperformances in suburbs/exurbs point to an additional round of Democratic gains coming in Waukesha/Ozaukee (WI) Cumberland (PA), Ottawa (MI), Forsyth (GA) and similar places in TX, NC along with counties like Hamilton (IN), Hunterdon (NJ), Delaware (OH).

How does the GOP offset this? They don't. In theory they can get a lot of working class Hispanics in NV, AZ but they will learn these states are not Florida quite fast.

[Devils30]

Pretty big underperformance in such a red trending district for the GOP.

[Devils30]

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.

It's not though? They had the Jacksonville Mayoral race and another special in December that were both really great for them in the last few months.

This is a Biden +5/DeSantis +12 district. To act as if a D winning by 3% here, when they were also outspent 5:1 is anything but a great performance would be completely wrong.

Most stunning thing here is how they likely won Indies by huge margins. Once again hard to matchup with polls that show Indies going for double digits nationally to Trump.

Oh and last thing, basically ignore everyone who tries to forecast FL races on Twitter during the day. Nearly everyone got it wrong.

I don't think Dems are going to slip as much in Orlando, Duval, Pinellas counties compared to Dade, Palm Beach and areas clearly trending away from them.