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

[Devils30]

Emerson/NBC4 has Carey up 50-39:

https://www.nbc4i.com/news/your-local-election-hq/oh-15-poll-republican-mike-carey-leads-democrat-allison-russo-among-likely-voters/

Trump won it 56-42 so not terribly impressive. That said, just as polls underestimated Dems in CA and may in VA, we could have the opposite error in some of these WWC areas south of Columbus.

[Devils30]

This seat is staying red but the margin is what I am looking at.

[Devils30]

What's left is election day vote which should run more Republican BUT several of the smaller counties have 100% precincts completed while Lancaster and Sarpy have none. I don't want to get my hopes up but maybe there is a chance...

No chance for the Dems but this was not an especially inspiring performance if you are an R, unless something unexpected comes from Lancaster.

[Devils30]

Brooks overperformed Biden by over 5% in Lancaster, suburban Roe backlash already showing??

[Devils30]

This was a real shocker. It seems like Lincoln drove pretty much all of the leftward shift? Did the rural counties also vote more D than in 2020?

Aside from suburban backlash following Roe, I can't think of why this would be so close, but also I know very little about the candidate quality. But if it is Roe, it's probably a temporary thing given how recent that news is.

Waukesha, Ozaukee problems coming for RonJohn? It won't be a temporary thing there with the 1800s law on the books.

This should make Dems take a second look at what seats are targets....maybe writing off NJ-7 is a bad idea in light of the suburban trends.

[Devils30]

This was a real shocker. It seems like Lincoln drove pretty much all of the leftward shift? Did the rural counties also vote more D than in 2020?

Aside from suburban backlash following Roe, I can't think of why this would be so close, but also I know very little about the candidate quality. But if it is Roe, it's probably a temporary thing given how recent that news is.

Waukesha, Ozaukee problems coming for RonJohn? It won't be a temporary thing there with the 1800s law on the books.

This should make Dems take a second look at what seats are targets....maybe writing off NJ-7 is a bad idea in light of the suburban trends.

If anything, I'd say there may be less backlash in blue states because there's no chance that abortion would become illegal.

Yeah, I think the NJ-7s and the NY seats require Dems to really work hard to push the national message. Dems will need most of these swing districts to hold the House against all odds.

[Devils30]

If this swing holds up nationwide in November, we could be looking at 55 Dem seats in the Senate and a 2008-size majoirty in the House.

It won't. Best case scenario for Dems is a 2002 type win and even that's like a 5% chance.

[Devils30]

Is that his home county/district?

[Devils30]

57-41 Finstad in Steele, Trump +23 county.

[Devils30]

It's gonna be so funny if the GOP really does blow it this year.

It's starting to feel like a ballgame where the team with a 6 run lead is now only up 1 in the 8th inning.

[Devils30]

Hot take: With GOP's underperformance even compared to 2020 in suburbs, is NC a more likely Senate flip than WI?

[Devils30]

Hot take: With GOP's underperformance even compared to 2020 in suburbs, is NC a more likely Senate flip than WI?

Possibly. I think the thing that holds it back though is Budd seems to have a lot less potential dirt than Johnson, but then again, Johnson was able to greatly outperform expectations in 2016 winning a race that many saw as a default flip.

Another big difference too is that in WI, most of the rurals are light red whereas in NC, you have a lot of ruby red rural communities. If there's an increase in polarization or increased turnout in these rural communities, sorta like what we saw in VA-Gov 2021, it'd be very hard for Dems to overcome.

Beasley is a better candidate than Barnes though, Barnes could become the latest casualty of the Elizabeth Warren wing.

[Devils30]

Hot take: With GOP's underperformance even compared to 2020 in suburbs, is NC a more likely Senate flip than WI?

Another hot take: Texas Governor more likely to flip than Ohio Senate. Suburban trends are real.

[Devils30]

Conservative election Twitter is in full cope mode over the MN-01 results. You love to see it.

FWIW I actually don't think this is a great result for Democrats, not bad, expected, but not great. MN-01 was never as red as the Trump numbers would indicate, last nights election is Republicans largest congressional  margin of victory there since 2006.

This wasn't "expected" though. Most prognosticators had it Likely R, and given that this is a Democratic midterm with Rs constantly telling me about Bidens approval, inflation, gas prices, etc., an R winning by 4.0 when they won by 3 in 2020 in a D+4 prez/+3 house year, is a terrible result for Republicans.

Not just that, but if the Republican trends are real, you'd expect it be closer to Trumps +10 and not Hagedorns +3.

Bottom line IMO here is that we've now had numerous results that shown that this doesn't look like a red wave year at all, and Democrats are clearly engaged, with strong turnout in the blue areas of this district.

It's too bad Ds didn't put more effort here. Glad they aren't making the same mistake in NY-19.

The $1 Million question is whether these suburban trends enable Dems to defeat GOP incumbents in Biden swing seats. A lot of models will say no chance but Dems need to have success in OH-1, CA-22, CA-27, CA-45 to offset the losses in GA-6, TN-5 etc. I would absolutely try to destroy the GOP on abortion in every suburban battleground.

[Devils30]

Would a R+2 result be good for either side? You figure the narrowest of victories for Molinaro could suggest a short stint in Congress with high turnout Ithaca in the November version.

[Devils30]

Delgado lost Greene by 14% in 2018 while winning 5% districtwide

Molinaro up 22, so that would signal 3% win districtwide if uniform.

In NY-23 Ithaca had a massive swing left from 2020. Even if Molinaro wins this, he might have a lot of problems in November’s NY-19.

[Devils30]

How the hell is Molinaro going to win the November version of this regardless of the final votes? He is losing his Dutchess base and getting Tompkins county....based on tonight that won't make it 3% more Dem, more like 5-6%.

[Devils30]

NY-18 should be lean D now.

[Devils30]

Great night for Tom Malinowski.

Yep, I expect this one to move to tossup soon. High education levels could be a Dem swing from 2020 that offsets Kean's local strength. Malinowski also already represents Kean's entire state senate district slate of towns in NJ-7.

NY-18, NH-1, MN-2 should move to lean D.

[Devils30]

https://twitter.com/Redistrict/status/1562295564557066240

I don't know...NY-19 is quite rural and only 30% college degree. VA-2, NJ-7 and a lot of suburban swing seats are better for Dems compared to this one. Molinaro is also a top recruit.

[Devils30]

Molinaro got an 8% boost on Trump 2020 in Dutchess and Ryan's boost on Biden was less than 3%, suggesting Molinaro had a built in advantage and still lost worse than Trump. I don't know how he wins with Ithaca and Binghamton added to the fall version.

Ulster is 33% college degree, this is not even close to the most educated/biggest Dem swing type of place yet commentators are talking like it is.

[Devils30]

Molinaro got an 8% boost on Trump 2020 in Dutchess and Ryan's boost on Biden was less than 3%, suggesting Molinaro had a built in advantage and still lost worse than Trump. I don't know how he wins with Ithaca and Binghamton added to the fall version.

Ulster is 33% college degree, this is not even close to the most educated/biggest Dem swing type of place yet commentators are talking like it is.

To paraphrase some dude on Twitter, if Lincoln, NE and Kingston, NY are college-educated liberal enclaves, the country is full to bursting with college-educated liberal enclaves.

I saw that post originally from Wasserman or Jotline Hosh. It felt very condescending too to whites with a college degree. Harkens back to the constant "whites with no degree are the REAL Americans"

Wasserman is just taking it slow....a lot of experts are reluctant to admit the Dems have a 40% chance of winning the House at least. The specials are reflecting a D+5-6 type environment (not saying it happens). But from the specials you would expect Dems to win 220-230 in the House and 51-53 in the Senate.

Going forward the House could begin looking a lot better in September/October while the Senate appears to completely stall out. Watch for this because Dems are already polling great in NV, AZ, GA, PA, WI while having a 53 ceiling with NC. A Dem House surge will likely be accompanied by a good poll or 2 in FL, OH but mean little more than 2020 in those states.