State Legislature Special Election Megathread v2

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Does this district include Ames? Even if the district has a safe R history it's sad to see a D candidate get flushed in a district with a major university in it.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Obama lost this district by 5 against McCain, while winning the state overall by 9 points. Its a very Republican district.

And Obama's 2008 performance in Iowa is pretty much the high watermark for Dems.

Iowa voted for Dukakis 1988, and Clinton 1996 by double digits.

The era of the farm bill is long past us, we got several new political generations in the state now.

But the era of the farm tariffs is upon us. Thanks, China.

I'd love for this to happen, but if Iowa still voted for Trump by 9.5% after he ran a very anti-TPP campaign when farmers were one of the few specific occupational demographics which TPP was supposed to unequivocally benefit.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

I'd love for this to happen, but if Iowa still voted for Trump by 9.5% after he ran a very anti-TPP campaign when farmers were one of the few specific occupational demographics which TPP was supposed to unequivocally benefit.

I think it might matter more if the people see a direct cause and effect that leads to financial problems (for themselves or people they know). Keep in mind that, as said before, Trump may have had a big winning margin but actual support wasn't that impressive. It was smaller than Obama 2012, which makes it seem more anti-Clinton than pro-Trump. With that in mind, it's not hard to see Iowa voting out a bunch of Republicans (possibly including Trump in 2020) with or without a burdensome trade war.

I think you're right in a number of ways (Anti-Clinton vs. Pro-Trump, real effects vs. easily ignorable hypotheticals) and there are a few other things you did not mention that may explain this phenomenon (Clinton also campaigned against the TPP, Obama era water regulations). Still it was very shocking to me to see Iowa move so far to the right when one of the largest occupational demographics there had clear financial incentive not to vote for Trump -- and farmers are known as a trade where people are very well informed about broader macroeconomic trends in their trade. Past precedence says that Iowa is likely to swing back the other way in the next cycle, although the margins there were so large in 2014 and 2016 that I don't think we'll see it make it all the way back to a D majority in a statewide race any time soon.

As much as I'd love to see Trump lose Iowa I'd almost even prefer for Ernst to lose first. She's awful.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Any Floridians wanna explain what's going on around West Miami? Swingy in 2016 and a return to form in 2018. Why did it trend opposite of the rest of the state (and most of the rest of the country, lol) from 16 to 18? Was there just something really odd about one of the candidates in 2016?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

West Miami is extremely cuban, moreso than almost any other neighborhood in Miami. Marco Rubio is from there.

So I am guessing Baez is a Cuban candidate and syphoned off enough votes from West Miami in 2016 to pass the finish line?

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

People are already rushing in to say "muh Greitens" to excuse the R-loss, using it to act as if this has no bearing on the rest of the races we'll see in 2018. They did the same with "muh pederast" in AL-SEN. It's almost as if MULTIPLE state-level Republican parties are horrible, scandal-plagued and liable to blowback, and that perhaps these cases aren't necessarily isolated incidents.

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

People are already rushing in to say "muh Greitens" to excuse the R-loss, using it to act as if this has no bearing on the rest of the races we'll see in 2018. They did the same with "muh pederast" in AL-SEN. It's almost as if MULTIPLE state-level Republican parties are horrible, scandal-plagued and liable to blowback, and that perhaps these cases aren't necessarily isolated incidents.

Greitens is a big drag here, but an area like Kansas City is were you could totally see Trump be a bigger drag then other locations.

Right, that's what I'm saying. That people are consistently underestimating the effect of what they perceive to be isolated incidents (Greitens, Moore) and not considering the possibility that these are somehow indicative of something wrong with the national Republican party as a whole (or at least it's perception).

[💥💥 brandon bro (he/him/his)]

Interesting and short twitter thread on PA-114

https://twitter.com/xenocryptsite/status/1105521011674497025

Includes this accounting of 2016 votes showing, erm, discrepancies upballot from the downballot results which are solidly D.