Special Election megathread (4/30: NY-26)

[RogueBeaver]

https://twitter.com/PunchbowlNews/status/1384141066102738950

[Hope For A New Era]

Wow. Keeping them coming, I guess.

[Meatball Ron]

Watch DeWine schedule the special election for this seat earlier than the OH-11 special

[Oryxslayer]

Probably a redistricting casualty jumping out before his district becomes the one reapportioned out of the state.

[lfromnj]

Probably a redistricting casualty jumping out before his district becomes the one reapportioned out of the state.

Very unlikely previous to his retirement. Columbus growth very much prevents that as those 3 districts have to shrink even with the state losing a district.  The most likely casualty is Ryan as he touches 5 districts, and is very underpopulated along  with touching way too many metros to be kept legal.

[Born to Slay. Forced to Work.]

There could be snowball’s chance that democrats pick this up, or atleast come close a la SC-05

[VAR]

There could be snowball’s chance that democrats pick this up, or atleast come close a la SC-05

Democrats are not picking up a seat that is 60% rural. This seat is like VA-05 - relatively “close” but not at all winnable for Dems.

[Nyvin]

Wasn't Stivers the one who demanded the incredibly awkward splitting of Franklin county in 2011?

[Roll Roons]

Wasn't Stivers the one who demanded the incredibly awkward splitting of Franklin county in 2011?

He lives there, so maybe. Apparently, the original plan was to split Columbus between four Republican districts. Given what's happened there, the Ohio GOP was smart to cede a sink.

[BuckeyeNut]

Watch DeWine schedule the special election for this seat earlier than the OH-11 special

He legally cannot.

There could be snowball’s chance that democrats pick this up, or atleast come close a la SC-05

Democrats are not picking up a seat that is 60% rural. This seat is like VA-05 - relatively “close” but not at all winnable for Dems.

Eh. Athens and Ohio University are a substantial part of that rural population. With a good candidate in a special election environment, it could be winnable. Have to see who gets in.

I also imagine this seat recedes significantly into the Columbus area going into 2022.

EDIT: the 60% rural number also comes from the 2010 census, which is outdated. Taking a look at OH-15 in DRA, we can see it's over-populated by 35,000. That's going to be almost entirely Franklin County, with some Fairfield County mixed in.

[walleye26]

If I looked correctly, in 2018 Stivers beat the Democrat by 1 point in Franklin County’s part of the district, and by 5 in 2020. Im guessing this is the suburbs of Columbus and not the city itself, right?

[Oregon Eagle Politics]

Wasn't Stivers the one who demanded the incredibly awkward splitting of Franklin county in 2011?

He lives there, so maybe. Apparently, the original plan was to split Columbus between four Republican districts. Given what's happened there, the Ohio GOP was smart to cede a sink.

If only

[Badger]

Bye Felicia. Though we'll likely get someone worse.

[Tekken_Guy]

State Sen. Stephanie Kunze would be a good candidate here. She won re-election by about 100 votes as Trump was losing her district by double digits.

[BuckeyeNut]

Athens Mayor John Patterson is considering a run for OH-15. He would probably be the strongest recruit for Democrats. Patterson is both liberal enough to play in Columbus and folksy enough to play in the rural counties you still need to hit 40% in. (I find his speaking style is remarkably similar to that of Tom Hanks.) All of the other Democratic candidates under consideration live in Franklin County, which is unideal.

State Sen. Stephanie Kunze would be a good candidate here. She won re-election by about 100 votes as Trump was losing her district by double digits.

If she gets the nomination, I think Kunze would be unbeatable. I find it unlikely she could win the Republican nomination, though. Kunze held on in her Biden+15% district because she is exceptionally moderate, and while Franklin County makes up about 1/3rd of OH-15, far fewer than 1 in 3 Republican primary voters live in Franklin County.

[Neptunium]

SOLID Republican anyway, whoever think this district is winnable for dem are doing wishful thinking.

[politicallefty]

It's not winnable, but the vacancy will make Speaker Pelosi's job a bit easier in the short term.

[Hope For A New Era]

There could be snowball’s chance that democrats pick this up, or atleast come close a la SC-05

KS-04 2017 energy

[GALeftist]

Trump +14, nothing to see here. Bet Pelosi's happy though.

[BuckeyeNut]

If I looked correctly, in 2018 Stivers beat the Democrat by 1 point in Franklin County’s part of the district, and by 5 in 2020. Im guessing this is the suburbs of Columbus and not the city itself, right?

Predominately, yes. A few precincts in the city proper, but overwhelmingly suburban. You also have the few rural(ish) townships within Franklin County in its southeast corner.

[lfromnj]

If I looked correctly, in 2018 Stivers beat the Democrat by 1 point in Franklin County’s part of the district, and by 5 in 2020. Im guessing this is the suburbs of Columbus and not the city itself, right?

Kinda, Columbus city lines are some of the worst in the nation and it forms a large portion of the county anyway so some of the district includes the city. It does include Upper Arlington although the remaining suburbs are bit more down to earth such as Grove City. After that it includes some actual urban precicnts in some very ugly arms because Stivers wanted to represent some rich bank areas. It is gerrymandered but more to Stiver's desire for certain constituents than a partisan gerrymander. Democrats at the time didn't really complain about the Columbus map afaik besides some of the weirder shapes.

Edit: the district does include partisan gerrymandering  but thats due to how it takes Athens away from the 6th district which by now is actually a D friendly move due to how Republican the 6th is while this remains only slightly R. The rest of the Ohio map is a pretty extreme partisan gerrymander though.

[Mr.Phips]

There could be snowball’s chance that democrats pick this up, or atleast come close a la SC-05

Democrats are not picking up a seat that is 60% rural. This seat is like VA-05 - relatively “close” but not at all winnable for Dems.

This seat is worse than VA-05 for Dems since it doesn’t have a Charlottesville or Albermarle county.  The part of Franklin county in the district is not particularly Democratic and Athens is not nearly as big or Democratic as Charlottesville.

[Gracile]

Turner going on TV next week-

https://mobile.twitter.com/MediumBuying/status/1385590114697584644

[BuckeyeNut]

(She performed terribly in the election for Secretary of State in 2014, but of the five statewide candidates, she was the base's choice, bar none.)

What does that even mean lol - she got the lowest vote share of any Dem running statewide in Ohio in 2014. Are you arguing that among the people who did vote straight ticket Dem, they were most excited about Nina? That feels pretty hard to prove.

Edit: sorry, she slightly outperformed scandal-plagued FitzGerald but underperformed the rest. Think my point / question stands.

It isn't. I was at ODP in the summer of 2014. People who volunteered overwhelmingly did so because Nina Turner was running. They couldn't have cared less about Ed FitzGerald, and there was only mild enthusiasm for David Pepper, Connie Pillich, and John Carney.

All of this is to say that, in an election decided by the base of the party, as this election will be, Turner won't have any problems getting the support she needs, even from more "normal" Democrats.

[TJ in Oregon]

If I looked correctly, in 2018 Stivers beat the Democrat by 1 point in Franklin County’s part of the district, and by 5 in 2020. Im guessing this is the suburbs of Columbus and not the city itself, right?

Kinda, Columbus city lines are some of the worst in the nation and it forms a large portion of the county anyway so some of the district includes the city. It does include Upper Arlington although the remaining suburbs are bit more down to earth such as Grove City. After that it includes some actual urban precicnts in some very ugly arms because Stivers wanted to represent some rich bank areas. It is gerrymandered but more to Stiver's desire for certain constituents than a partisan gerrymander. Democrats at the time didn't really complain about the Columbus map afaik besides some of the weirder shapes.

Edit: the district does include partisan gerrymandering  but thats due to how it takes Athens away from the 6th district which by now is actually a D friendly move due to how Republican the 6th is while this remains only slightly R. The rest of the Ohio map is a pretty extreme partisan gerrymander though.

The lines between OH-15/OH-3 was one of the main pinch points for getting the map passed actually. The original map had somewhat different lines when it was passed, and then the Democrats began collecting signatures to get the map overturned in a referendum. Ohio's constitution allows bills to be passed with a third-thirds vote that is 'emergency' legislation and cannot be overturned by referendum. So what ended up happening was the Ohio Republicans convinced a few Democrats in the Black Caucus to support the 'emergency' map by making OH-3 a minority opportunity seat by moving some white areas out and some more racially diverse areas in.