WWTBAM Bored

http://www.startribune.com/special-elec ... 3231133/#1

This was an earlier story about an upcoming special election to be held on Feb 14.

Obviously, special elections are goofy things and can turn out in odd ways. Spoiler-the Republican won on Tuesday. I got a kick out of this quote in the story.

>>>Warner,(The Democrat) 62, a former Duluth City Council member and longtime staff member for labor organizations, has fielded requests from film crews from California and national progressive groups with thousands of members looking to make phone calls in the handful of upcoming special elections around the country. U.S. Sen. Al Franken and U.S. Rep Rick Nolan both signed up to knock on doors.<<<

Yep, that is the ticket for the Democrats to win exurban districts. Heavily involve national progressive groups in making calls and so forth. Also, as noted Congressman Nolan lost the district.

I think Trump strongly over-performed the usual Republican vote there with the special reverting more to a usual outcome. In 2014 (A Big Republican Year)-the Republican won 55 to 44. In the Special on Tuesday-the Republican won 53 to 47.

I haven't looked at turnout to see how motivated the electorate might have been on either side.

A turnaround of over 20 points in three months is pretty good, no matter how you slice or spin it. And the Democrat in this election outpolled Obama in 2012 by six points, a fairly good gain as well. In five state special elections since the November election, Democrats have outperformed Hillary in four of them. But, as Spock points out, we are talking about a state senate seat in which only a few thousand total votes are cast, so simply making GOTV efforts can make a difference, regardless of how popular or unpopular a President is.

A better test is coming in April, and it's one that I will be participating in. Tom Price was my Congressman, so there will be a special election primary on April 18. If no candidate gets 50% of the vote, then the general election will be June 20. Currently, there are five Democrats, 11 Republicans, and two independents running, so it's a fairly safe bet there will be a runoff. The best known Republican is the relatively moderate former Secretary of State Karen Handel, who almost became governor a few years back. Also on the ballot is the head of Donald Trump's national diversity coalition, Bruce LeVell and several strongly conservative candidates who have pledged to support Trump. The leading Democrat is documentary film maker specializing in whistleblowing exposes. John Lewis, Hank Johnson and Daily Kos have endorsed him. Also on the ballot is former Democratic State Senator Ron Slotin.

One, it's not beyond the realm of possibility for both Slotin and Ossoff to outdistance the 13 non-Democratic candidates, especially if Democratic turnout is fairly heavy for the primary. That would guarantee a Democratic pickup. A more realistic possibility is that one of the Republicans makes it to a runoff with one of the Democrats. This district should be safely Republican. It consists of some very affluent areas in North Fulton, East Cobb and North Dekalb, but Trump only carried the district by one percentage point over Hillary. Tom Price won the district 62-38 in November, but that was against token opposition. Still the Democrat improved on the showing of the last contested election against Price in 2012.

silverscreenselect wrote:Donald Trump's national diversity coalition

Allegedly, a group like that existed. The human urinal cake's definition of diversity is "fascist Republicans and Nazi Republicans".

Pastor Fireball wrote:

silverscreenselect wrote:Donald Trump's national diversity coalition

Allegedly, a group like that existed. The human urinal cake's definition of diversity is "fascist Republicans and Nazi Republicans".

Good, Good. Let the hate flow through you....