State Legislature Special Election Megathread v2

[Gass3268]

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

[Mr.Phips]

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.

[Nyvin]

The GOP is going to win the Iowa seat. Great night.

Low bar much?

[America Needs a 13-6 Progressive SCOTUS]

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.

[Oryxslayer]

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.

[Doimper]

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.

[💥💥 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.

[Virginiá]

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.

[💥💥 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.

[Badger]

The district went 25% for Clinton. This is a 23% swing to the Democrats.

But Atlas told me FL-Sen was tossup

This is indeed a bad sign for Rick Scott.

9% turn out in a safe dem seat. Doesn’t mean anything

And how many special elections now have we told ourselves that? OH WAIT!! There was almost no D shift or even a small R one in a single GA house race!! And DON"T FORGET OSSOF!!! Clear evidence the other dozens and dozens of special and off year elections spread across the country showing near universal hard shifts to the Dems are all meaningless. Hooray!!

Dude, let's stop whistling past the graveyard. Trump is going to f$%k our party over in November. Horrendously.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Democratic New York assemblyman Frank Skartados passed away today. He represented district 104.

https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/04/15/skartados-death-deep-loss-community-editorial/515195002/

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Democratic New York assemblyman Frank Skartados passed away today. He represented district 104.

https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/04/15/skartados-death-deep-loss-community-editorial/515195002/

Rip, was a good FF.

[MAINEiac4434]

Democratic New York assemblyman Frank Skartados passed away today. He represented district 104.

https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/04/15/skartados-death-deep-loss-community-editorial/515195002/

Rip, was a good FF.

[Theodore]

Democratic New York assemblyman Frank Skartados passed away today. He represented district 104.

https://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/opinion/editorials/2018/04/15/skartados-death-deep-loss-community-editorial/515195002/

Rip, was a good FF.

[Holy Unifying Centrist]

No special elections today?

[Pragmatic Conservative]

No special elections today?

Yes but their are a number of special elections next week.

[Landslide Lyndon]

No special elections today?

Yes but their are a number of special elections next week.

A boatload of them in New York.

[Adam Griffin]

I encourage anybody who is interested in past (or future) special elections to visit my stickied thread on the congressional board.

There, you'll find the margins for each district from the 2016 legislative race (or in a few cases, 2014/2015) and the 2016 presidential, along with the special election margin and swing. All data is available in the first two posts of the thread.


Related: it looks like we have quite a few potentially competitive special elections coming up over the next month:

Competitive Specials in the Next 30 Days:
Congr   AZ   8   -   4/24/18
House   NY   10   -   4/24/18
House   NY   107   -   4/24/18
House   NY   142   -   4/24/18
House   FL   114   -   5/1/18
House   PA   48   -   5/15/18
House   PA   178   -   5/15/18

Color denotes which party held seat prior to vacancy

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Democratic Massachusetts house rep Jim Miceli for the 19th middlesex district passsed away today at a public event.

http://www.wcvb.com/article/state-rep-jim-miceli-dies-after-collapsing-at-massachusetts-event/19880530

[smoltchanov]

Democratic Massachusetts house rep Jim Miceli for the 19th middlesex district passsed away today at a public event.

http://www.wcvb.com/article/state-rep-jim-miceli-dies-after-collapsing-at-massachusetts-event/19880530

Interesting. By Massachussetts standards at least this is a "conservative" district, and Miceli was rather socially conservative (though - pro-labor) Democrat. Special (if it will be held), and general election here may be interesting.

[Attorney General, LGC Speaker, and Former PPT Dwarven Dragon]

Today, there will be 11 special elections in New York: 9 for the State Assembly and 2 for the State Senate. All polls close at 9 ET. All results will be here: https://nyenr.elections.ny.gov/ . By default, the page will load the State Senate races. To switch to the Assembly races, select that option in the contest dropdown and click Search. I'd like to thank the state of New York for being far better than many other states in providing results for special elections.

A reminder that there will also be a special election in AZ-8, which will be covered on the appropriate threads in the congressional board. If at all possible, I will have the NY races called before AZ-8 begins reporting results at 11 ET.

[Dr Oz Lost Party!]

Eyes on AD 05, 10, 17, and 107.

[LimoLiberal]

Looking back on the 2017 AD-09 special in Suffolk we flipped, we didn't start getting results until 9:40.

[Co-Chair Bagel23]

Looking decent so far.

[Adam Griffin]

LOL