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

[homelycooking]

Wikipedia has a listing for special state legislative elections.  Someone seems to keep it fairly up to date, though the individual links to the actual races do not necessarily cover that special election.

http://www.ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/State_legislative_special_elections,_2011 

It looks like Tuesday is a busy day for filling vacancies in Connecticut.  I gather the vacancies were mostly a result of the new governor appointing members of the legislature to positions in his administration.  His timing of announcing proposed tax increases might be interesting to see for an impact on the results. 

You're exactly right about the reason for the vacancies. Most of the special elections on Tuesday will happen in solid Democratic territory like West Hartford and Bridgeport and thus will be like watching paint dry. The most interesting ones will be in the 13th Senate District, where the incumbent was arrested for larceny and resigned, and in the 25th House District where New Britain's mayor is running for the GOP and providing some major star power.

[homelycooking]

Absolutely. That's a tough district for the GOP due to Chester and Deep River, but Peckinpaugh should be able to at least make it close.

[homelycooking]

You have your working class Catholics in places like Waterbury and they are the more socially conservative ones but if we're still talking about the wealthier Connecticut Republicans they are in places like Himes' district and aren't very Republican anymore. That area is pretty comparable to Westchester in New York. Many Italians in Connecticut are religious and socially conservative but my entire family is very liberal. Demographically, CT can only get more Democratic.
I don't foresee any seats switching partisan hands tomorrow.

I think one will, and maybe two. The House seat in New Britain, the House seat in Chester/Essex and the Senate seat in Meriden have GOP candidates with fair shots at winning.

[homelycooking]

I'm guessing SD-13 might flip; it was pretty close at the gubernatorial level, and the incumbent only won 58-42 last year. The House seats don't seem particularly important, since the Democrats have a much larger majority there than in the Senate.

Edit: For the House seats, best odds are probably HD-36, 99, and/or 101 flipping.

The incumbent in SD-13 not only won by a small margin, but also was recently arrested for larceny.

I give HD-36 about a 55% chance of flipping. HD-25 might be surprising because of the popular GOP candidate. I give the edge to the Democrat in HD-101 because Madison has had a massive swing over the past decade to Democrats. Same with HD-99 in East Haven. The other two are so Democratic they're not worth mentioning.

[homelycooking]

Low turnout not a shocker. SD-13 makes sense - everyone, Dems included had the bad taste of larceny in their mouths. SD-06 looks close but the Democrat has the lead - I guess Stewart only has so much strength in his hometown. Peckinpaugh's political career is done. If she can't win her home district in the state House, she can't be trusted with anything by the GOP.

[homelycooking]

The Courant says this as their final result:

SEN 06: DEM Hold: Gerratana 52% over Stewart
SEN 13: REP Gain from DEM: Suzio 58% over Bruenn
SEN 27: DEM Hold: Leone 53% over Kolenberg

HSE 20: DEM Hold: Verrengia 64% over Hoffman
HSE 25: DEM Hold: Sanchez 99%
HSE 36: DEM Hold: Miller 52% over Peckinpaugh
HSE 99: DEM Hold: Albis 52% over Monaco
HSE 101: REP Gain from DEM: Kokoruda 58% over Walker
HSE 126: DEM Hold: Stallworth 36% over others

Turnout was so low and the vote so fractured in 126 (Bridgeport) that a petitioning candidate was nearly elected.

[homelycooking]

Blast the Working Families Party. An organization that only endorses and does not run candidates of its own is a pressure group, not a political party.

[homelycooking]

Blast the Working Families Party. An organization that only endorses and does not run candidates of its own is a pressure group, not a political party.

So what's the problem? It's a good thing they aren't running candidates against Democrats. Look at all the problems caused for Republicans by the Conservative Party in New York.

I don't see it that way. Sure, maybe cross-endorsing allows parties to lend, borrow and steal little fractions of the vote and be able to say to Democrats/Republicans, "See, if only you were nicer to us you could have won this or that election", but it just seems like an underhanded and corporatistic way to run politics.