Congressional Special Elections Results Thread (OLD, PLEASE UNSTICKY)

[publicunofficial]

I think the NRCC is worried about margins. Getting a close result in a seat like that could build talk of an anti-Trump wave. Scares off potential challenger recruits, makes incumbents give some thought to retiring rather than run a tough race.

[Ebsy]

Cook just moved KS-04 from Safe R to Likely R.

[Gass3268]

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Something's up here. This might end up being embarrassingly close for Republicans.

[DrScholl]

Trump should make a campaign stop for the Republican candidate. After all, he did win the district.

[publicunofficial]

Fun Fact: This was Ted Cruz's best CD in the primary/caucuses. Got 62% of the vote here, even better than in WI-05.

[ajc0918]

What would a "good margin" for a democrat be in this district? Anything under 20?

[Ebsy]

What would a "good margin" for a democrat be in this district? Anything under 20?

Paul Davis only lose the district by 6.6% in 2014 so something single digits.

[Ebsy]

Dave Weigel‏
NEWS: Dem Jim Thompson’s campaign in #KS04 says the NRCC ad, which hits him on abortion, is getting pulled for including false info.

Sad!

[OneJ]

What in the world did the GOP do to worry about what could be an unusually (and embarrassingly) closer than usual race?

I mean it takes a lot of effort to start worrying about Kansas.

[KingSweden]

I'm still extremely skeptical Dems could win this. This is a game of margins

[Holmes]

Well yeah. If this were KS-03 then it would be a different story.

[Obama-Biden Democrat]

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Ron Estes is having to ship in Lyin' Ted to try to rescue his collapsing campaign?  Sad!

[publicunofficial]

By the way I'm loving having a special election every Tuesday. We should just elect the House this way.

[JerryArkansas]

Just saw that registered Democrats are only 7 points behind the Republicans in the early vote.  They were more than 30 points ahead in November of last year.  Is this really going to be a single digit race?

[Ebsy]

[progressive85]

Special elections, if you look back at the ones in the last years of GWB and the ones with Obama (such as that one in New York City that the Republican won and Scott Brown), can be upsets and big surprises, and can become nationalized since there is just one election to focus on.  Now I don't know if the Democrats will win any of these, but the fact that they are competing in red districts says something's going on.

[windjammer]

The Pub will win like by 10 points and will dramatically underperform Trump. But it won't be a close result.

[The Other Castro]

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http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/4/7/1650828/-Shock-upset-in-the-making-GOP-admits-Kansas-should-not-be-in-play-but-Kansas-is-in-play

[Beet]

An overwhelmingly white red state is safe Republican, no different than Kander in Missouri. They always make noises about considering a moderate Democrat, but will come home in the end.

[Chancellor Tanterterg]

The Pub will win like by 10 points and will dramatically underperform Trump. But it won't be a close result.

Estes only winning by 7-10% would be huge and should scare the hell out of Republicans if it happens.

[Holmes]

Honestly this is the type of open seat that could cause an upset and be winnable provided the Democrat had longer to campaign, and money was actually being spent on him. Republicans are dirt in the state, the only reason Democrats aren't making the big gains they normally would in any other state is because they're dirt in Kansas too. But in 2018 with an open governor's seat and some other statewide offices, just maybe.

[Skill and Chance]

An overwhelmingly white red state is safe Republican, no different than Kander in Missouri. They always make noises about considering a moderate Democrat, but will come home in the end.

It seems like Kansas has been on the cusp of realigning for a while now.  Maybe a fully Republican-controlled federal government is what does the trick?  Even being within 10 in this part of the state would easily extrapolate to a statewide Dem win.

[windjammer]

The Pub will win like by 10 points and will dramatically underperform Trump. But it won't be a close result.

Estes only winning by 7-10% would be huge and should scare the hell out of Republicans if it happens.

Oh I totally agree with you on this.

[Tartarus Sauce]

The point isn't whether the Dems will win, it's how close they can make the margins. A significantly boosted Democratic turnout in a safe Republican district like this is a result worth cataloging. The specific results of any individual special election aren't that important in terms of their relation to next year's midterm, but if the situation plays out that Democrats massively overperform in the special elections across the board compared to the 2016 general, from Georgia, to Montana, to Kansas, to South Carolina, etc., then that's a much stronger indicator that a wave could be in the making come 2018.

[Ebsy]

Speaking of SC-05 (Mulvaney's seat), has anyone heard anything about Democratis fielding a credible candidate there? The district has a fairly high floor for Democratic performance (even if Clinton did poorly there).