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

[Kevinstat]

And the chances of the Democrats actually losing control are essentially nil due to way seats are elected: only half of the seats are up for election.

You're mistaken there.  From the New Jersey Legislature's Our Legislature page:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Two State Assemblymen/women (in each odd year) and one State Senator (in years ending in "1", "3" or "7") are elected from each Legislative district.  Comparing both the 2007 primary and general election results for State Senate and General Assembly, normal "block voting" or "plurality at large" seems to be used for elections to the New Jersey General Assembly.  Interestingly though, two Assembly candidates can bracket themselves with each other.  Slogans are used in the primary to indicate ideology or who are the "regular" party candidates (presumably those endorsed by the local county committee).  I'm not sure if voters can vote for both candidates by checking one box of not, but they clearly don't have to as I see candidates bracketed with each other with different vote totals.  Perhaps a New Jersey forumite can explain how that works, and whether or not New Jersey has a "big box" or "one lever" voting option in the general election (Maine got rid of its big box in 1972).

[Kevinstat]

SD 22 (Central Texas, southern DFW suburbs, similar to Chet Edward's district, 68% McCain): To replace Kip Averitt who resigned for health reasons.  After Averitt resigned, he was talked into remaining on the primary ballot so that his opponent Darren Yancy would not be elected unopposed, and instead the Republican party could name a replacement nominee.

Averitt won the primary based on 71% support in McLennan County, and 50-50 in the DFW suburbs.  The special election is for the remainder of the term, but might be considered a straw poll for deciding who is nominated by the Republican party.  Yancy has said that he would run in the special election, along with David Sibley, the former senator (until 2002).  Sibley like Averitt, is from Waco.

Since Averitt is withdrawing from his nomination for the 2011-2013 term for health reasons, he may be replaced by the Republican Party.  However, since there are no other nominees, all parties will be able to nominate for the November election (and of course anyone can run in the special election).  Democrats may not want to draw out Republican votes to vote against Edwards, so may pass on this district.

So the only special still on is SD 22.

Who are the candidates in the special election, and what party/parties are they from?  Also, any word on whether the Democrats will take advantage of the provision that allows them to nominate a candidate for the full term even though none filed by the normal deadline or got enough write-in votes in the primary (unless one did)?

Maine doesn't have such a provision, and in both 2002 and 2008 a Democratic caucus of combined municipal committees chose a candidate to replace an unopposed incumbent on the general election ballot.  The replacement candidate so chosen in 2002 barely won "re-"election against a Republican in 2004, became an Independent in 2005, started caucusing with the Republicans, handily defeated the same Democratic challenger in 2006 and 2008 (no Republican has opposed him since he left the Democrats), became a Republican last year and is now their candidate for the State Senate in his district (and will probably win).

[Kevinstat]

There was another district that had been added, HD 66 which is in Collin County, due to the resignation of Brian McCall to become chancellor of the Texas State University System (Texas has several independent system governing bodies, Texas State University system is just one of them).  But the loser of the Republican primary runoff, has just withdrawn from the special election, so the Republican primary winner, Van Taylor will become the current representative.

It turns out that the loser in the primary runoff did not withdraw in time to be removed from the special election ballot.  The SOS office apparently did not realize this and did not show the special election on their web site.

She won the special election on very light (3.1%) turnout.

Primary:

Mabrie Jackson 5616
Van Taylor 4581
Wayne Richard 3485

Primary runoff:

Van Taylor 4954
Mabrie Jackson 3541

Special:

Mabrie Jackson 1353
Van Taylor 1049

Wow!  While I find it unfortunate that the Secretary of State's Office did not list a special election on their web site (while they presumably did for the SD22 special election also held yesterday (Saturday)), and media coverage of the election might also have been poor, outcomes like this are part of what makes electoral politics fun for me.  Will the Legislature be in session between now and the inaugaration of the Legislators elected to full terms next year?  Or will Jackson likely never cast a vote in the partial term she was just elected to?

Who won yesterday's SD22 special election, by the way?

[Kevinstat]

I've seen a couple of Laird signs here.

Who does it look like will win here?  Laird should win since this district is very Democratic and he represented half of the district for many years until 2008 in the State Assembly.  However, Democrats have been doing awful in winnable special elections lately. 

I don't see the district as being very Democratic (if it were so Democratic, perhaps Abel would have had an opponent), and I'm not sure to what extent state legislative special elections in Louisiana or wherever impact the election results here. Tht said, I haven't been along the coast much south of Monterey since I was 7. Laird will clean house in the places I'm familiar with.

The district is certainly very Democratic.  Obama won here by 20 points and even John Kerry won it by seven points. 

So, who won?

[Kevinstat]

Silly me.  There have been two many elections over the weekend lately. 

[Kevinstat]

We nominated the liberal, who is also kind of cute over the pro-life Moderate Hero in 5B. Good.

She's also only 25. The vacating incumbent held the seat for a decade and yet he's only 35 now. Weird district to be electing youngs. It's not a youthful place at all.

She is kind of cute indeed, if the picture is an accurate reflection of reality.  When does this special election take place?

Special election in Minnesota House, 5B. Mark Dayton has appointed incumbent Tony Sertich, former Majority Leader and who was in line to become Speaker to chair the Iron Range Resources and Rehabilitation Board (Yes the acronym for that is IRRRB, awesome.) Sertich was mentioned as a possible challenger to Cravaack so this probably takes him out of the running. Primary is Feb 1st, general is Feb 15th.

Dayton won the seat 63-29, so obviously this one probably isn't going to be competitive, but the DFL primary should be interesting. Filing deadline has just passed, there are four Democrats running, one IP and one Republican (the same guy who lost to Sertich in November and got 33%.)

[Kevinstat]

Democrats retained Missouri State Senate District 9:

State Senator - District 9    Precincts Reporting 64 of 64
   Curls, Shalonn (Kiki)  DEM 11,594  83.5% 
   Wood, Nola  REP 2,298  16.5% 
Total Votes   13,892 

Is that district in St. Louis (the city, not the county) or Kansas City?  It would seem so from the result.

[Kevinstat]

Yeah, the Democrat won in Maine

Since she was (well, she might still be until tomorrow) a State Representative, there will be a special election for her House seat, although it could theoretically be left vacant if the town (presumably the selectmen or the town manager) never sent notice of the vacancy to... I forget whether it's the Governor or the Secretary of State but no matter... the seat will definitly be filled, perhaps on the second Tuesday in June when a lot of Maine municipalities have elections (thats the date of the primaries in even years) probably on November 8 ("Election Day," when there will probably be some referenda on the ballot), and it leans pretty strongly Democratic nowadays, although there was a fairly close race in 2006 of all years.

The recent special State Senate election could be described as a contest between the parties as to who could nominate the worst candidate, with the Republicans winning.

[Edited to reflect that I wasn't thinking when I said the special election might be held in mid-June, and that the election couldn't be held before the Legislature adjourns on June 15 and so the special election will likely be held in November.]

[Kevinstat]

Democratic pickup in the New Hampshire House of Representatives, in the current Speaker's district apparently.

Source: Blue Hampshire

[Kevinstat]

Dem Hold in Maine House District 121 (most (population-wise) of Cape Elizabeth), 1,340 votes (53.51%) to 1,164 (46.49%).  Narrower than in 2010 (when the two-term Democratic inbumbent, who won a special State Senate election this spring, won 58.35% to 41.65%), but the Republicans had a strong candidate this time and they probably hadn't put much effort in in 2010.  Cape Elizabeth is rather strongly Democratic nowadays (it wasn't in the 1990s and definitely not in the 1980s).

[Kevinstat]

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.

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?

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.