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

[Brittain33]

Please stay on-topic for OH-11. Israel/Palestine discussion can take place at International General Discussions.

[Brittain33]

Please stay on-topic for OH-11. Israel/Palestine discussion can take place at International General Discussions.

But what had been said was on-topic for OH-11 on-balance? And it wasn't even "Israel/Palestine discussion," it was just pointing out how a criticism which had been lodged in the thread against Ted Deutch's OH-11 endorsement (so, an on-topic matter) served to invoke an anti-Semitic trope, & didn't really delve beyond that discussion as to how that on-topic criticism was potentially anti-Semitic.

Am I missing something here?

I agree that Ted Deutch’s endorsement and the reasoning he gave are relevant to OH-11. It’s that my experience over the last 25 years is that discussion of Israel/Palestine and how it plays into U.S. politics and how people talk about dual loyalties is uniquely incendiary and quickly diverges from the race itself even if it started with a specific endorsement. The original post was reported and excising that but leaving the rest of the discussion it started without risking flare ups again was not possible. That’s all.

[Brittain33]

https://twitter.com/SusanSpice/status/1422876372658229248?s=20

[Brittain33]

Put it another way: does anybody unilaterally credit an old congressional dinosaur like Bernie Sanders with electing Cori Bush, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, etc? No, because it sounds f[inks]ing stupid.

Same goes for Clyburn and his (much more selective, because he wants to be perceived as a winner) endorsements. Terminal Onlineness and Severe Pundit Brain shouldn't be a prime feature on this forum.

The problem with the framing that he picks the winning team or he shuts up is that Brown won narrowly with low turnout so it’s not like this was a safe bet for him to ride a winner’s coattails.

[Brittain33]

Put it another way: does anybody unilaterally credit an old congressional dinosaur like Bernie Sanders with electing Cori Bush, AOC, Rashida Tlaib, Jamaal Bowman, Mondaire Jones, etc? No, because it sounds f[inks]ing stupid.

Same goes for Clyburn and his (much more selective, because he wants to be perceived as a winner) endorsements. Terminal Onlineness and Severe Pundit Brain shouldn't be a prime feature on this forum.

The problem with the framing that he picks the winning team or he shuts up is that Brown won narrowly with low turnout so it’s not like this was a safe bet for him to ride a winner’s coattails.

75k votes cast is not bad turnout for an off off year special Congressional primary.

Fair enough, it’s not low turnout for a primary like some others we’ve seen. I just meant it was low enough that there was high uncertainty about the outcome.

[Brittain33]

For most districts like this, it is obvious that any victory for a progressive involves running against a damaged incumbent and not setting off too many alarm bells (i.e. massive fundraising numbers or Big Online Followings) until the end of the campaign. Bush, AOC and Bowman all managed to pull this off to varying degrees.

Again, I just want to make clear that your argument is that Brown was always going to win, it was obvious Turner could not make it competitive, and Clyburn was reflecting the conventional wisdom of Brown’s preordained victory by deciding to get involved. Is that accurate? Because I have a hard time squaring that with a 5-point win with few polls.

[Brittain33]

Now that the drama is over in both Ohio races, I've merged into a Special Elections thread and stickied like in 2019.

[Brittain33]

Should we be worried that a fear of criticizing Biden will make Democrats more hostile to legalizing marijuana going forwards?

I think there's a difference between disagreeing on issues and calling him half a bowl of sh**t. Cori Bush just got him to change his policy on the eviction moratorium through criticism, didn't she?

[Brittain33]

I’d like to update the thread title. What’s coming up?

[Brittain33]

Flores at over 50% according to CNN

Website says she has 47.6% now to Sanchez 45.5%. Extremely low vote totals so far.

[Brittain33]

Flores at over 50% according to CNN

Website says she has 47.6% now to Sanchez 45.5%. Extremely low vote totals so far.

Yah though given this seat will go from D+4 to D+16 its hard for me to see this anything but a rental given these results so far

If it goes to a runoff, I wonder if Dems decide to compete rather than sit it out as they have been. This turnout is so low.

[Brittain33]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

[Brittain33]

Ok, she’s over 50 now, I can go to bed.

[Brittain33]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

As some have pointed out elsewhere, there's no reason a low turnout race should favor Republicans in an area that is has deep Democratic roots.

No, but it’s how Republicans won the same territory in 2010 when Blake Farenthold was the Republican candidate.

What it means is that 15,000 people showing up to vote Republican doesn’t really work as evidence that 100,000 formerly Dem voters are changing their minds and now voting Republican.

It’s much better evidence that a lot of Dem voters don’t care to vote Dem right now at the same time that some people shifted R before 2020. Which is a problem for Democrats, but it’s not Alabama in the 1990s.

[Brittain33]

Bro, are you doing an open seat race swing against an uncontested race with a popular incumbent? Why not the swing vs. Biden/Trump? Tom Price got 62% in the 2016 election but the real indicator in that district was the Clinton/ Trump number - the environment didn’t swing hugely against Trump in the few months before Handel/Ossoff.

[Brittain33]

Bro, are you doing an open seat race swing against an uncontested race with a popular incumbent? Why not the swing vs. Biden/Trump? Tom Price got 62% in the 2016 election but the real indicator in that district was the Clinton/ Trump number - the environment didn’t swing hugely against Trump in the few months before Handel/Ossoff.

I'm sure I don't need to explain to you how leading indicators work and the difference between presidential and downballot races.

Yes, indeed. But what’s the case for why Vela’s performance is more meaningful for a shift than Biden’s when projecting nationally? Most seats are re-elections, not open seats after long-time incumbents retire. Projecting based on an incumbent-to-open-seat swing is not going to give us a “national environment.”

Please do make the argument that a 4 point swing to a Republican from Trump’s numbers shows a R+13 environment.

[Brittain33]

It blows my mind that people are extrapolating from a race with such pathetically low turnout. Dems are going to have a bad midterm, but this election has a small fraction of the votes of even the 2017 special elections where Dems fought in Republican seats. We see the 2020 realignment with extra apathy and a small swing away from Biden. There’s a good reason all the Republicans on Twitter keep calling back to Clinton and Obama, not Biden, for a comparison.

Collin and Denton for Cameron is a good trade.

"For every blue-collar Democrat we lose in McAllen, we will pick up two moderate Republicans in the suburbs of Dallas and you can repeat that in New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada."

You do realize that Mexicans do not only live in Brownsville but also in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio, and, basically, throughout Texas? Right now, it might appear that the "trade" is worthwhile but we are a rapidly growing demographic and Democrats have a lot to lose from writing us off - there's nothing preventing Mexican-Americans from giving Trump 60 or even 65 percent of the vote in Texas in 2024.

Not writing anyone off other than a marginal voter in the RGV who likes Trump. Is there evidence urban Hispanics are voting like RGV and other rural Hispanics? I don’t see people saying that any of those urban Hispanic districts are at risk like TX-34. And I can match Collin and Denton County with diverse suburbs all over the country if we want to extrapolate, too.

[Brittain33]

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

They are. The problem is, so are the Democrats. Turnout was abysmal.

[Brittain33]

Flood takes a narrow lead on NYT

[Brittain33]

https://twitter.com/JosephSzymanski/status/1541965187200188416

Uh, what? Brooks is at 62.3, Biden got 52.3.

Did he mean Lancaster early vote in 2020?

[Brittain33]

Big drop from Lancaster puts Brooks slightly ahead again. I doubt it holds.

[Brittain33]

Flood is out to a bit of a lead now, but NYT is still expecting 19,000 more votes from Lancaster. 5,000 votes still out from Sarpy which could go either way.

How did those estimates do in the Texas race? I thought they turned out to be a mirage.

[Brittain33]

Lancaster has another drop at 10:15 central. Don’t see Flood losing but I want to see where this leaves the race.

[Brittain33]

Based on NYT, the last batch from Lancaster was friendly to Flood and numbers haven’t moved at all.

[Brittain33]

Just noting this race has 108,000 votes counted already and the TX-34 race that people are hailing as the dawn of a realignment had total turnout of 29,000 votes.