Special state legislative elections thread (see OP for results/upcoming races)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I'm thinking of places like New Canaan and Darien.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Where are SD-13 and HD-101 located?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

LOL. I think I should post this again in honor of him:

Screw your wife in the behind
Tell your kids you're doing fine
Goddamn no good stupid liar
Sucking dick your pants on fire

HOMOSEXUAL - up the ass
HOMOSEXUAL - make it last
HOMOSEXUAL - jerk me off
HOMOSEXUAL - go get lost!

Found out that your dad was gay
Living life a brand new way
John Lennon was a queer
He screwed Brian up the rear

HOMOSEXUAL - I'm one too
HOMOSEXUAL - so are you
HOMOSEXUAL - kill Dan White!
HOMOSEXUAL - was it right?

Don't like boys, you like girls
Living in your f****t world
Talking shop with lawyers' wifes
Sneaking out to meet the guys

HOMOSEXUAL - I'm ashamed
HOMOSEXUAL - that's your game
HOMOSEXUAL - where's the blame
HOMOSEXUAL - I can't explain

HOMOSEXUAL - we love you
HOMOSEXUAL - up the ass!
HOMOSEXUAL - Darby Crash
HOMOSEXUAL - make it last

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It appears that I missed that we actually had a special election for a vacant State Senate seat in St. Paul about three weeks ago when Dayton appointed the incumbent to head the Public Utilities Commission. Probably because it was not the slightest bit interesting (unsurprisingly):

Republican    GREG COPELAND    991   19.59   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    MARY JO MCGUIRE    4059   80.25   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    8   0.16

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So that means Kapanke is basically dead in the water. This is actually the most conservative seat in his district, the other two are the city of La Crosse (which has a PVI of around D+12) and the other being some traditionally D-leaning but not overwhelmingly rural areas. This seat being basically suburban La Crosse is the most Republican and the only one that voted for Bush 2004.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It's southern Mobile County, there aren't any black people there.

But of those which are there.

Most of them probably just didn't vote.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The seat doesn't look THAT safe unless I drew it wrong in DRA (likely) or it changed significantly in redistricting (also likely).

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

My attempt at drawing the district in DRA based on the map on wikipedia has it as a 54% Obama and 50/50 average district. Now matching maps with NJ precincts is tough, and I don't know how it changed in redistricting, but I am interested in the numbers on the current seat.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Minnesota has two specials upcoming. I've been so out of the loop and not paying attention to local media and websites that I missed that my OWN State Senator resigned two weeks ago and announced her resignation in late June. Shame on me. She's been in office since 1981 yet resigned to take a position as health care policy director for Hennepin County. I wasn't really fond of her to be honest even though I did vote for her last year so I'm pleased her replacement will almost certainly be more liberal.

The other open seat is the 46th, vacant after the death of incumbent Linda Scheid in June to ovarian cancer.

My own district, the 61st is so safe DFL there's no point in assigning a PVI to it or anything, it's an 80%+ Dayton seat, his best in the state. Needless to say the special won't be interesting. The primary probably won't be either as the State Rep for half the seat Jeff Hayden is running, and I believe he'll be the only black state senator if elected. Hayden's opposition consists of a guy who ran on the IP ticket for State House last year and some random other people. I won't pledge to voting for Hayden if I end up liking one of the others (at least one has a pretty impressive resume I'll admit), but it would be an odd situation if he doesn't win. Of course the other candidates running are opening themselves up to the election for Hayden's House seat so it's not a waste (I don't live in that one so I can't vote in that election.) More info here: http://politicsinminnesota.com/2011/08/all-eyes-on-the-primary-six-dfl-challengers-are-vying-for-a-mpls-senate-sea

The 46th, in the immediate northern suburbs isn't quite as safe but is still a Dayton >50% seat, so it would be a massive upset if it flipped. Only two DFL candidates, the DFL endorsee is an RN and union activist Chris Eaton, also the wife of the mayor of Brooklyn Center. The other candidate is Timothy Davis Sr. who I can't find any real info on, so he's probably just an odd ballot-space wanter. So neither one will be too interesting. I do want to observe the patterns though!

Primaries on September 13, special on October 18.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Yeah, I just tend to not pay much attention to local politics in odd-numbered years. At least I'm inspired to catch up a bit on local political blogs.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

These results in my Senate district ARE interesting. Or rather the breakdown:

http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20110913/Cross_PLD.asp?M=LG&LD=61



Blue = solid Hayden
Red = solid Warfa
Green = not really strong for anyone

The border between those two blue precincts on the west edge that goes through the entire district is the border between the two State House districts. You can probably guess which is Hayden's.

The Hayden precincts have an >50% white VAP but just barely (50.8%), and are 17% black and 23.4% Hispanic. The green ones are 48.1% white/22.3% black/20.2% Hispanic VAP. The blue ones are 29% white/36.9% black/24.4% Hispanic VAP. Hayden is black by the way.

Special obviously won't be interesting, though the primary for Hayden's House seat probably will be.

Oh in the other seat the DFL endorsed candidate won with something like 88% against a nobody, and the GOP endorsed candidate got around 85% against one of those Ron Paul nerds. DFL primary had about twice as many votes.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

These results in my Senate district ARE interesting. Or rather the breakdown:

http://electionresults.sos.state.mn.us/20110913/Cross_PLD.asp?M=LG&LD=61



Blue Red = solid Hayden
Red Blue = solid Warfa
Green = not really strong for anyone

Correct?  I can't see how Hayden would have won by 2 to 1 (2.04 to 1, to be more precise) otherwise.

Ah yes. Totally correct.

The Hayden precincts have an >50% white VAP but just barely (50.8%), and are 17% black and 23.4% Hispanic. The green ones are 48.1% white/22.3% black/20.2% Hispanic VAP. The blue ones are 29% white/36.9% black/24.4% Hispanic VAP. Hayden is black by the way.

This seems to back that up, at least about the red precincts being the solid Hayden ones.  Is Warfa black, too?

Yes, and also Somali. Which is actually a pretty interesting pattern. In 2010 Warfa ran for State House under the Independence Party ticket. He got 11.53% (DFL incumbent was reelected with 78.48%), but note the results in precinct 9-11. This was a 95.43% Obama precinct and gave Dayton 91.20% the same year:

Independence    SADIK WARFA    71   45.22   
Republican    NICHOLAS SKRIVANEK    4   2.55   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    KAREN CLARK    82   52.23   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    0   0.00

So it's obvious where Warfa's support base is coming from (by the way his campaign was little more than platitudes like "Better schools!" and "more jobs!")

The border between those two blue precincts on the west edge that goes through the entire district is the border between the two State House districts. You can probably guess which is Hayden's.

It depends on the answer to my first question.

Does Warfa live in Hayden's House district?  It sounded from your earlier post that most of Hayden's challengers did.  I imagine someone who didn't run for the Senate seat would get Hayden's backing for his House seat, although you never know.

No, the seat he ran in is the other one which I live in, 61A. Kristian Heuer by the way has already announced for Hayden's House seat, but he only got 2% in this primary.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So all the seats were Dem holds?

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

So those two Minnesota specials ended up as expected:

46:
Independence    TOM REYNOLDS    292   5.35   
Republican    CORY JENSEN    1782   32.67   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    CHRIS EATON    3374   61.85   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    7   0.13

61:
Independence    MATT BRILLHART    44   1.62   
Republican    BRUCE A. LUNDEEN    221   8.13   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    JEFF HAYDEN    1856   68.24   
Green    FARHEEN HAKEEM    595   21.88   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    4   0.15

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

We got two more specials upcoming, one Senate one House. The House one is of course Hayden's seat. The Senate one is district 59 in northeast Minneapolis and the University of Minnesota area, as the incumbent Larry Pogemiller was appointed by Dayton to be the state's director of higher education. Both are obviously utterly safe seats but I'd like to look for patterns in the primaries. Primary Dec. 6, special Jan. 10.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

It was confirmed today that the slew of specials we are going to have here in a number of State House districts will take place in the new districts.

I would've thought that would be illegal.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I totally forgot until now we have two specials tomorrow.

One is for Senate district 59 in NE Minneapolis, made vacant by the appointment of former Senator Majority Leader Larry Pogemiller to head the State Office of Higher Education. The DFL candidate who won the primary is Kari Dziedzic (hmm, I do recall now seeing Dziedzic for Senate signs in neighborhoods near my church but never put much thought into them.), the daughter of some longterm city councilman. The Republican is some random irrelevant guy. Obviously it's an utterly safe DFL seat with nothing interesting going to happen.

The other one might actually be kind of interesting, it's 61B in South Minneapolis, made open by the election of Jeff Hayden to become my new State Senator (though I won't be able to vote in this one living in 61A.) No Republican filed. Tribal activist Susan Allen won the primary and her only opponent is Nathan Blumenshine, who is running under the "Respect" ticket and describes himself as an "independent progressive". His platform on his website is pretty much what you'd expect a liberal Democrat in this district to run on and even seems pretty respectful of Allen instead of attacking her. Good guy. I don't think he has a chance because too many folks in this district are party-line voters but at least the election won't be a boring blowout, he might even win a precinct or two.

Fun fact: If Allen wins (overwhelmingly likely), both House districts in this State Senate one will be represented by lesbians. In addition Minnesota will get its only Native member of the legislature. Blumenshine is good, but he's also a boring white heterosexual guy. I think I know who Lewis would be voting for if he lived here.

Apparently there was a "forum" between these two candidates which strikes me as insanely boring since they are basically identical on all the issues, but clips are on YouTube anyway.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

State Senate District 59
Republican    BEN SCHWANKE    824   19.28   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    KARI DZIEDZIC    3393   79.41   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    56   1.31

*yawn*

State Representative District 61B
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    SUSAN ALLEN    1155   55.96   
Respect    NATHAN BLUMENSHINE    896   43.41   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    13   0.63

Good showing by Blumenshine. He actually two precincts, one in a landslide, and tied another. Unsurprisingly he did best in the white areas, Allen won the minority areas.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Allen easily won the primary with 82%.

I don't think there's a sign of racial polarization here so much but rather simply that minorities just voted for the DFL candidate while the whites voted for the progressive candidate they were more impressed by. It was kind of the same thing in 2006 (actually that was more the progressive candidate who had less baggage and just happened to be white.)

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Minnesota State Senator Gary Kubly passed away and a special election for his seat is being held on April 10. The seat is probably lean DFL, it's a rural area that's trended against the Democrats in recent years but was still carried by Dayton by about 2 points. Obama won it by about 5 points, and it was basically a tie in the 2008 Senate, won by Franken by 56 votes:

http://www.sos.state.mn.us/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=11170

The bad news for the DFL is whoever wins it will have to run in the new 16th or 17th, both of which are more Republican.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Didn't that district even vote for McCain? Don't see how that could be safe D.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Who cares anyway? The real battle over who controls the senate was given during redistricting and there Cuomo screwed royally his fellow Democrats.

I think most would agree it's more likely than not the Democrats take the Senate before the end of the decade even under the current map.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Isn't this senate seat converted to a much safer Pub one under the new map?

I understand it is basically carved up, the Dem parts given to neighboring Dem incumbents, some of the Republican parts used to shore up the other remaining Republican in Brooklyn, and the Orthodox parts used to create what Sam is calling "the NY Jew seat". Of course that new seat probably votes Republican and even though it might not I'd honestly rather have a "normal" Republican than someone like Dov Hikind.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

The DFL held that seat I mentioned earlier:

Independence    LEON GREENSLIT    364   5.06   
Republican    GREGG KULBERG    2912   40.48   
Democratic-Farmer-Labor    LYLE KOENEN    3914   54.41   
Write-In    WRITE-IN**    3   0.04

Of course, we'll have to see which new seat Koenen runs in and all. All are less favorable.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

Hmmm, this is only about a 52% Obama district. I'm surprised such a district exists in Philly since the McCain precincts are so spread out.