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

[lfromnj]

Why would anyone even want this seat, it is 100% going to be redistricting into oblivion.
If the OH-GOP is smart they would break this and the Youngstown seat up while making a Cincinnati Dem pack. The map would look very nice (won’t prompt backlash) and would still be a pretty safe way to net a seat.

Kaptur is the other seat the GOP can crack. Her district runs from Toledo to Cleveland This seat is actually from Cleveland to Akron but will have to retract to Cleveland. Its also an AA VRA seat and still very Safe D and impossible to crack.



Instead expect it to look something like this as in the green district.A fairly logical and compact COI that splits only one town but is also a natural Democratic pack.The purple district is the rest of Cuyahoga and it actually voted for Trump! It isn't an overpacking of AA's either. It just puts all of the white liberals who live in the same towns as the AA's +Lakewood together.

[lfromnj]

Also honestly her complaints are stupid.

"HUD is a leftover for black members"

Its not like every HUD cabinet member has been black, you have to go back like 6 or 7 before Carson to find someone.

The expectation for Agriculture was a bit silly especially for someone from such an urban district. Yes there are obviously some urban concerns regarding the Agriculture department but those aren't exclusively urban issues such as Food Stamps.

[lfromnj]

Again there is literally 0 chance a 81% D district gets cracked. It will just retract to Cleveland and pick up Lakewood.

[lfromnj]

This is already becoming one of my favourite threads on Atlas.

A bunch of people acting like they're experts in the OH-11 district saying she wont be competitive in the first couple pages, then she breaks a fundraising record and pulls in a slew of endorsements almost instantly.

chef's kiss.

She’s gonna lose, but whatever helps you sleep at night

Big "Anybody who thinks Nina Turner would win this doesnt understand Ohio politics" energy

I wouldn’t go that far, but she’s certainly got her work cut out for her, that’s for sure.  

On a different note, apparently Emilia Sykes is taking a pretty hard look at running here.  If she does, then the Akron Democratic machine will go all-in for her and she’s probably got the Akron portion of the district locked down.

I wouldn't bet on Sykes running. (Although I wouldn't completely rule it out, either.) She has her eyes on a bigger prize, and if she did win, she would be in trouble quickly. OH-11 is all but guaranteed to recede into Cuyahoga County entirely come redistricting, meaning Sykes would have to move and lose her core primary voting base in the process.

What's a bigger prize?

[lfromnj]

Why would anyone even want this seat, it is 100% going to be redistricting into oblivion.
If the OH-GOP is smart they would break this and the Youngstown seat up while making a Cincinnati Dem pack. The map would look very nice (won’t prompt backlash) and would still be a pretty safe way to net a seat.

I'm pretty sure this is a VRA seat.

Correct. It needs to elect someone black, but does not need to be maj-black.

No it can elect a white person too just like Cohen and Gary Peters.

[lfromnj]

This is already becoming one of my favourite threads on Atlas.

A bunch of people acting like they're experts in the OH-11 district saying she wont be competitive in the first couple pages, then she breaks a fundraising record and pulls in a slew of endorsements almost instantly.

chef's kiss.

She’s gonna lose, but whatever helps you sleep at night

Big "Anybody who thinks Nina Turner would win this doesnt understand Ohio politics" energy

I wouldn’t go that far, but she’s certainly got her work cut out for her, that’s for sure.  

On a different note, apparently Emilia Sykes is taking a pretty hard look at running here.  If she does, then the Akron Democratic machine will go all-in for her and she’s probably got the Akron portion of the district locked down.

I wouldn't bet on Sykes running. (Although I wouldn't completely rule it out, either.) She has her eyes on a bigger prize, and if she did win, she would be in trouble quickly. OH-11 is all but guaranteed to recede into Cuyahoga County entirely come redistricting, meaning Sykes would have to move and lose her core primary voting base in the process.

What's a bigger prize?

Governor, someday. Sykes might take a detour to Congress, but it would make sense to hold out for the lines to be redrawn if she does. It is moderately likely there will be a Summit County-based U.S. House seat in 2022, and there hasn't really one of those since the 1990s.

Said house seat can also be Safe R

[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.

[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.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/MaxNordau/status/1422902561783308295

[lfromnj]

OH-11 going overwhelmingly Dem

Rs ahead 54%-46% in the 15th so far

 The 15th is badly gerrymandered  Like the rest of Ohio, and this is an off your election with a Democrat in the White House. The only issue here is  The margin. Hopefully russo can avoid an embarrassment.

Some of the gerrymander is partially to help Ohio 03 be more black to get black caucus support along with Stivers wanting a lot of bank areas. The most partisan part is probably scooping up athens from Ohio 6th.

[lfromnj]

So here's something that understandably went unnoticed: Mike Carey won OH-15 by just under 17 points, while Trump had won it by 14.

This result was definitely not consistent with what we saw in NJ or VA. Why was the swing in this district so much smaller?

It's kind of a polarized district and the Republicans are pretty maxed out in most of their strong areas in it

Also, Carey was a pretty lazy candidate who tried to coast off his Trump endorsement (and not all Republican-leaners are happy about this, obviously), while Russo actually ran a really energetic campaign. In the current environment it didn't really matter, but if this had been a special in 2017-2018 I'm actually pretty confident it would've flipped.

I mean its pretty similar to Conor Lamb's original district. Some rich suburbs but also some ancestral dem rural/exurban areas.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/1524115103867543553?s=21&t=_wOx-uMNH...

Pat ryan to face Molinaro in NY 19th special and general I assume.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/politics1com/status/1524115103867543553?s=21&t=_wOx-uMNH...

Pat ryan to face Molinaro in NY 19th special and general I assume.

Who knows what the district will be for next year.

I can't see it not having Ulster county.

[lfromnj]

Just find it funny how the take is a few months ago that Trumpists in the RGV were low propensity voters.

[lfromnj]

Based upon the rural counties nearly entirely in so far, Brooks appears to be doing best and Lancaster where she overperformed Biden in Seward County quite a bit. Flood appears to be overperforming in rural counties in the Northern and Western parts of the district

Don’t you mean Sarpy? She’s only down there by 4, Trump won it by 12.

FYI The portion of Sarpy in the district was Trump +7.5

[lfromnj]

Morrisey will be interesting. He has his base of the urban Richmond and Petersburg African Americans. The other 3 groups in the primary should be , rural African Americans, suburban African Americans in Henrico and Chesterfield, and White Democrats in Richmond proper who should punch above their weight in a low turnout firehouse primary.
Morrisey is incredibly toxic among these white Democrats and should receive basically 0% even in a 1v1 primary. His strength is definetely overall with poor African Americans so it will be tough for him to pick up votes in the lower middle class to middle class Henrico/Chesterfield suburbs while he should be a decent fit if he campaigns well in the rural counties.

[lfromnj]

https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/1603418182584238085?s=20&t=GD2y4VOm_fH...

Probably locks it up for McClellan, since their districts kinda overlapped and she got Kaine's support yesterday.

I'm glad Democrats are uniting behind one African-American mainstream candidate to hopefully block Morrissey.

Does anyone familiar with the area know how strong Morrissey is on the ground? I just learned about the firehouse primary yesterday and I was shocked to discover his story. What is his voter base? How is he even a contender given his past problems, conservative views, and race?

He has deep and successful constituent outreach with a very specific section of his African American district. I'm not sure if that extends in any capacity to anyone he has never represented.

He actually did best in Petersburg in 2019 despite being from Richmond. However this special being held so early prevents his ground game.

[lfromnj]

Any idea when we can expect results from the primary?

https://twitter.com/HenryGraff/status/1605664365776101386

Its the week before Christmas along with the fact its a firehouse and not state funded.