State Legislature Special Election Mega Thread

[MarkD]

Next pickup opportunity: MO-HD-50 Michela Skelton (D)

Check out this blog piece on her candidacy where she was interviewed!

https://ready2vote.com/blog/ready2votes-interview-with-democratic-candidate-michela-skelton-missouri-house-district-50

If anyone is interested, I calculated the 2016 Presidential and Senate numbers this morning.

2012 President:

Obama: 37.7 (44.4 statewide)
Romney: 60 (53.6)

2016 President

Clinton: 36.7 (38.1)
Trump: 57.7 (56.8 )

2012 Senate

McCaskill: 48.7 (54.8 )
Akin: 43.3 (39.1)

2016 Senate (two party)

Kander: 45.7 (48.5)
Blunt: 54.3 (51.5)

Very interested! Good job! This is the very same kind of election analysis that I often do as well.

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According to her own campaign site, yes, she is a distant cousin to him, and she met him once in his capitol hill office.

[MarkD]

Friedman got 89% of the vote, no Republican filed, so the swing is massive but does not really tell us much.

After looking into where that district is located I'm not surprised that no Republican filed. The only R voting town in that district is Billerica. For what it's worth no Republican filed in 2016 either.

Republicans have not bothered running for that district in most of the elections in the last 21 years, and even when they do run, they usually get beat by 2 to 1. The district just voted 61.33% for Clinton, 32.37% for Trump last November. Martha Coakley narrowly won here in her losing race for Governor in 2014.

[MarkD]

The gap is too big to make up at this point. Just 6 precincts left now:

State Representative - District 50           21 of 27 Precincts Reported
Sara Walsh   Republican   2,219   56.825%
Michela Skelton   Democratic   1,686   43.175%
    Total Votes:   3,905   
            

It appears that the six precincts not reported yet are all in Boone County, where at least 2/3s of the votes are cast for the whole district, and that is where Skelton is narrowly ahead.
Boone County Clerk's report, time 8:34 CST:
Sara Walsh (Rep) ........... 1,022
Michela SKelton (Dem) .... 1,122

I'm not surprised that the Cole County, Cooper County, and Moniteau County portions of the district would all be very heavily Republican, but their combined populations are only 1/3 of the whole district, while 2/3s of the population lives in Boone County.

[MarkD]

That lead is only a fifth of what would be needed to catch up. My projection isn't about the margin, it merely states that the republican will remain in the lead.

I agree; Walsh will win, and I'm not surprised. I was a little off, btw, about how much of the population is in Cole, Cooper, and Moniteau counties combined: they're only a little over 26% of the district, so nearly 74% is in Boone County. But if Skelton wins Boone, she won't win it by a margin big enough to overcome how badly she lost in the other three.

[MarkD]

Breakdown of the MO HD-50 vote.
Boone County ....... Sara Walsh (R) 2,540 to Michela Skelton (D) 2,875
Cole County .......... Sara Walsh (R) 132 to Michela Skelton (D) 67
Cooper County ...... Sara Walsh (R) 212 to Michela Skelton (D) 85
Moniteau County ... Sara Walsh (R) 853 to Michela Skelton (D) 412

The raw number of votes cast in this special election -- 7,176 -- is only slightly smaller than the number of votes that were cast in a St. Louis suburban, predominantly black, district three years ago; HD-67 had a special election in which 7,372 votes were cast. But these races had higher turnout than most Missouri mid-term special elections, which is often 6,000 down to less than 2,000.

[MarkD]

Goodness gracious, there's a lot of vacancies in the Missouri legislature this year!
As things stand now, the vacancies are:
Senate district 8
House district 23
House district 39
House district 97
House district 129
House district 144
House district 151

Earlier this year there was a vacancy in Senate-28 and House-50.
Why the heck do so many legislators resign rather than stay in their seats for another 1.25-1.5years? Senate district 28 and house district 129 are understandable, but why do all these other people keep resigning in mid-term??

Rant over.

[MarkD]

When are the Missouri special elections?