Special Election megathread (6/11: OH-6, 6/25: CO-4)

[Attorney General & PPT Dwarven Dragon]

When should we expect to get another batch of votes counted in Alaska?

The 23rd.

[JMT]

https://twitter.com/bradygibson/status/1561045626376388608?s=21&t=_VhPYeEVUC...

[wbrocks67]

Looks like Delgado finally getting out there for Ryan. I'm surprised he didn't cut a commercial or anything, I'm sure it would've been helpful.

https://twitter.com/PatRyanUC/status/1561402456273485825

[Torie]

Looks like Delgado finally getting out there for Ryan. I'm surprised he didn't cut a commercial or anything, I'm sure it would've been helpful.

https://twitter.com/PatRyanUC/status/1561402456273485825

It is so odd this guy is running for a seat very little of which is in the district he is running in for the general election.

[It’s so Joever]

Too little too late.

[wbrocks67]

Caveats about EV, but a data point that blue areas in this district are strongly turning out. Ryan needs a big margin and big turnout in this county to win.

https://twitter.com/AshleyDittus/status/1561707146026389510

[Brittain33]

Are we sure the June 2022 primary and fall 2021 general election are a meaningful comparison? I would expect turnout for those to suck. And Ryan’s got his machine in Ulster County to count on. I refuse to draw hopium from this.

[windjammer]

I'm optimistic for the NY special election. I believe he Can win. Suburbans are mobilized

[wbrocks67]

The other big county in the district which Molinaro needs to do well in

https://twitter.com/timkni/status/1561820311972110337

[Progressive Pessimist]

I hope all that ends up being true to Ryan's benefit. And I also agree that Delgado should have done a bit more to get involved with the race.

[Pres Mike]

When will we know the results of NY 19th? Please tell me it won’t be like in 2020 and we had to wait weeks for New York’s results

[Oryxslayer]

When will we know the results of NY 19th? Please tell me it won’t be like in 2020 and we had to wait weeks for New York’s results

I believe the law has changed after the reaction to 2020, so all absentee/mail ballots must be processed within 4 days of return, with all received before today are theoretically counted tonight. So while the count might go long, it will be for a increasingly small portion of the vote, whereas in the past the counties needed to wait until the return period fully elapsed to open any whatsoever.

[Torie]

The other big county in the district which Molinaro needs to do well in

https://twitter.com/timkni/status/1561820311972110337

Timmy apparently does not know that Pubs think early voting is a Dem plot, and unpatriotic. He is most probably going to be disappointed.  I rate this seat at the moment as likely Pub. The Pub is actually quite presentable. On the Pub side of the ledger, while NYS has its share of "unclubbable" kook candidates, it more than most states also has some more presentable types.

https://twitter.com/dataprogress/status/1562083045645197312?s=21&t=EKsScp7n8LDi8oSdFTfydw

Interestingly, Molinaro is also running at the same time for the reconfigured seat in the General, and if Jamie Cheney wins the Dem nomination (tend to doubt it but maybe), then the Dem and Pub candidates for NY-19 in the General will be candidates that live within about 5 miles of each other, with neither living in the district as reconfigured (they live in the far NW corner of Dutchess).

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm still keeping this at tossup/tilt Molinaro.

Firstly, it'd be quite a change if Dems streak of putting up solid performances in special elections (in demographically similar seats) suddenly just stops. Also, everyone keeps talking about how strong of a candidate Molinaro is, he's def not a garbage dump, but neither were Flood or Finstad. He just seems like a pretty generic R and nothing seems particuarly bad about Ryan.

Finally, this seat went to Biden in 2020 and has a good chunk of what many might consider to be the "Dem machine" or just very reliable liberal voters.

The one thing I think potentially works for Molinaro is that upstate NY tends to be a bit "overreactive" to national shifts so even a small shift in Rs favour nationally could make things very tricky for Ryan.

[windjammer]

I Guess I'm going to be wrong but I still think Ryan is going to win this

[It’s so Joever]

ZERO voting related snaps in the district. Contrast that to even MN-01 when there were a few or KS where there were lots. If this anecdotal data is anything to go by…turnout may be pretty low today

[wbrocks67]

ZERO voting related snaps in the district. Contrast that to even MN-01 when there were a few or KS where there were lots. If this anecdotal data is anything to go by…turnout may be pretty low today

Better for Dems then, since they crushed the EV it seems.

[Torie]

I'm still keeping this at tossup/tilt Molinaro.

Firstly, it'd be quite a change if Dems streak of putting up solid performances in special elections (in demographically similar seats) suddenly just stops. Also, everyone keeps talking about how strong of a candidate Molinaro is, he's def not a garbage dump, but neither were Flood or Finstad. He just seems like a pretty generic R and nothing seems particuarly bad about Ryan.

Finally, this seat went to Biden in 2020 and has a good chunk of what many might consider to be the "Dem machine" or just very reliable liberal voters.

The one thing I think potentially works for Molinaro is that upstate NY tends to be a bit "overreactive" to national shifts so even a small shift in Rs favour nationally could make things very tricky for Ryan.

Both Ryan and Molinaro are solid candidates. Ryan's only problem (not sure it will matter much), is that Ryan is running in a different CD for next year, while Molinaro is running in the same one. So this race is effectively about whether or not Molinaro in the General will be running as an incumbent or not, which could indeed be a critical factor since the new NY-19 is a bit more Dem than the old one because Cervas rejected my advice to keep Tompkins out of the CD.  

It will be interesting to see if Molinaro is the incumbent how much he uses the couple of months to separate himself from Trump. Trump is really, really toxic in the more prosperous parts of the CD. The higher the SES of a precinct, the higher the Dem percentage, outside of a few precincts that have a lot of people of color, like the one I am sitting in.

There is no Dem machine. It is more about upscale reliable white Dem voters, many of whom vote from their second homes, which drives the local Pubs nuts.

[wbrocks67]

I keep seeing reports that the GOP spent more on this race than the Dems but does anyone have any evidence?

Honestly I only know about the Dem side, where national Dems dumped $600K+ into that abortion spot and then VoteVets dumped $450K+ into another spot for Ryan. Is there any totals on how much national GOP spent for Molinaro?

According to the last FEC results, Ryan spent more on Molinaro candidate-only wise

[wbrocks67]

There are 33K ballots left to be counted in AK-AL, most of which seems will be dropped today

https://www.kinyradio.com/news/news-of-the-north/report-votes-cast-in-primary-special-election-near-record-high-for-alaska-primaries/

[wbrocks67]

Ulster County 2022 special election

EV
Dems 5,217
Other 1,067
Rep 918

Election Day turnout (as of 2:30)
Dems 6,758
Rep 4,112
Other 3,280

Total turnout so far = 21,352
Dems 11,975 (56.1%)
Rep 5,030 (23.6%)
Other 4,347 (20.4%)

Other = Indies, conservative, WFP, other, etc.

Ulster County 2020
Prez race = 97K - Biden +21 (59.5-38.6)
House race = 95k - Delgado +27.8 (62.8-35.0)

https://twitter.com/AshleyDittus/status/1562164965750050817

[GALeftist]

My benchmarks for a tied race in NY-19:

Ulster: Ryan+23
Dutchess: Molinaro+2.1
Rensselaer: Molinaro+14.7
Columbia: Ryan+15.6
Sullivan: Molinaro+13.7
Otsego: Molinaro+9.5
Greene: Molinaro+23
Delaware: Molinaro+25.9
Schoharie: Molinaro+33.5
Montgomery: Molinaro+42.2
Broome: Molinaro+42.1

[wbrocks67]

Obviously this won't be anywhere close to 2020 turnout (nearly 100K), but Ulster looks to maybe end with 30K turnout as a high benchmark, so it looks like this will be pretty low turnout overall.

Again, Dems really utilized early voting so will be interesting to see how the rest of election day turns out. So far, ED turnout looks meh.

[ProgressiveModerate]

I'm still keeping this at tossup/tilt Molinaro.

Firstly, it'd be quite a change if Dems streak of putting up solid performances in special elections (in demographically similar seats) suddenly just stops. Also, everyone keeps talking about how strong of a candidate Molinaro is, he's def not a garbage dump, but neither were Flood or Finstad. He just seems like a pretty generic R and nothing seems particuarly bad about Ryan.

Finally, this seat went to Biden in 2020 and has a good chunk of what many might consider to be the "Dem machine" or just very reliable liberal voters.

The one thing I think potentially works for Molinaro is that upstate NY tends to be a bit "overreactive" to national shifts so even a small shift in Rs favour nationally could make things very tricky for Ryan.

Both Ryan and Molinaro are solid candidates. Ryan's only problem (not sure it will matter much), is that Ryan is running in a different CD for next year, while Molinaro is running in the same one. So this race is effectively about whether or not Molinaro in the General will be running as an incumbent or not, which could indeed be a critical factor since the new NY-19 is a bit more Dem than the old one because Cervas rejected my advice to keep Tompkins out of the CD.  

It will be interesting to see if Molinaro is the incumbent how much he uses the couple of months to separate himself from Trump. Trump is really, really toxic in the more prosperous parts of the CD. The higher the SES of a precinct, the higher the Dem percentage, outside of a few precincts that have a lot of people of color, like the one I am sitting in.

There is no Dem machine. It is more about upscale reliable white Dem voters, many of whom vote from their second homes, which drives the local Pubs nuts.

I think this part of NY has a bit of spillover culturally from places like MA; you have quite a lot of smaller Dem towns that have been quite reliable even as rural areas have re-aligned. You also have a few areas that are tourism heavy, most notably Ulster County which also fits the definition of high SES precinct.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

This special isn't a referendum it's a revote in Nov when Hochul is on the ballot if we lose we will revote in Nov